Finding Your Voice
by IcyFirey07
Summary: Bella's family doesn't listen to her, and she's stopped trying to be heard until she meets someone who just might be able to help her find her own voice. Will she finally speak up? AU, OOC, All Human, Canon pairings ExB
1. Routine

A/N: First attempt at fanfic. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of it's characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

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**Chapter 1. Routine**

**BPOV**

It was Monday evening.

There was absolutely nothing to do since I had already finished my school assignments for the day. I'm just here, staring at the ceiling of my room waiting for a miracle to happen. I hated this time of day; it's always the hardest on me.

The alarm clock on my bedside table flashed 6:45pm.

Perhaps I should have been getting ready. Ready to drown out all the voices and anything that's bound to happen within the next 15 minutes, but for some reason, I couldn't get my body to move out of bed.

I had always been good at drowning out negative things around me. For the most part, my school work helped me focus. But today I felt masochistic. For some reason I felt like I should inflict pain on myself in order to succeed.

I started to doze off for a little bit when I heard a door slam. I glanced at the clock and it announced that it was 7:15pm.

_Right on time, _I thought bitterly.

And just like that it all started.

"You've got to be kidding me, right?" I heard my mother question Charlie from the living room.

"No. I told you I already had plans this weekend and for now it doesn't include you or Bella," my father answered in a rather harsh tone.

And there it was! Little hints like these hurt me the most. Knowing how my parents really felt about me, and the charade they tried to put up in front of me.

Apparently, Mom wanted us to do something as a 'family' this weekend.

My eyes clouded with tears but I refused to let them fall as I listened further.

"Charlie!" my mother hissed, "Bella's upstairs and she might hear you! Can't you be more considerate?"

Charlie growled, "Look who's talking about considerations right now!"

That's when I started to tune them out. I couldn't take this anymore. My parents were the most important things in my life but their attitudes lately have definitely not improved for the better.

I was always intrigued by knowing why my parents got back together. I mean, they got married right out of high school and then they had me. Those were the happy times, I guess – before I was born and became a burden to them.

My parents separated when I was 8 and I went to live with my mother back in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. I had to admit, we lived a pretty decent lifestyle but I still missed my dad. I used to spend time with him over the summer but sometimes it wasn't enough.

So naturally, I was very excited when my parents decided to get back together and my mom and I moved back to Forks. I wasn't really happy with having to move to Forks itself, since I don't really get along with the rain, and that's the general weather of this tiny town. Overall, I was truly happy. I thought we were going to be happy. My parents were together and I felt… content? Yeah, I would probably qualify it as that.

The first two years were good. We were literally the perfect family; but then it all turned to shit.

My phone rang and in my hurry to answer it, I didn't even check the caller ID.

"Hello"

"Hey Bell." It was Jasper. He has been my best and only friend ever since I lived in Forks – the first time. He's the only one that knows what really goes on in my family and he's always been there for me.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding "oh, hey Jas, what's up?" I said flopping back down on my bed.

"Nothing much, I saw the Chief's car pull up. How's the atmosphere today?" he asked concerned.

I sighed, "It's… tense," I said hesitantly, "but I can handle it for now."

"That's good I guess." He sounded relieved. Jas was always worrying about me when I got involved in between my parents' arguments and such, and he always feared that I would get hurt – physically – because emotionally, I was already a wreck.

"You know you can always come over if you need to, right?" he asked, reassuring me.

"Yes. I know... Thank you."

"Bella?" My mom knocked on the door. I jumped, startled.

"Dinner's ready," she said in a cheery voice.

I groaned. Renée's cooking wasn't the best out there. She knew how to cook, but I guess she just got lazy, so I normally took over the kitchen duty. But since today I told her I wasn't feeling well when I came home from school, she 'volunteered' to make dinner.

"Sorry mom, I'm not eating tonight," I called back trying to sound apologetic while Jasper laughed his ass off on the phone. "I'm just going to get ready for bed."

"Are you sure? Not even a little bit?" She sounded hurt but I would not risk my stomach's health with one of Renee's new inventions. She was probably trying out a new recipe.

I exhaled loudly. "Yes I'm sure mom. I'm just really tired." God I hope she doesn't keep insisting. I crossed my fingers in hopes of that.

"You can't lie for shit Bell.. just - just stop trying," Jasper said trying to stifle his laughter.

"Fuck you, jerk!" I hissed

I heard Renee sigh, "Alright sweetie, I'll see you tomorrow." She sounded defeated and now that made me feel guilty.

"Ok, goodnight," I said almost inaudibly.

"Oh, God!" I groaned leaning forward resting my head in my hand.

"What's wrong?" Jasper asked

"You should have heard Renee's tone; she makes me feel so fucking guilty it gets on my nerves. It's like for some reason she blames me for what's happening without really doing it, you know?"

"I know Bell," he whispered in a serious tone, "but try to ignore it. Like I told you before, that's just Renee's way of venting off and she clearly doesn't understand how that affects you. Just give her time."

"Yeah, I know." I knew I had to be patient with my mom and sometimes that wasn't the easiest thing to do; but I was trying and that had to count for something I guess.

I took a deep breath. "Thanks Jas… for everything"

He scoffed. "Whatever. I'm your friend – no scratch that – I'm your brother. I'm here for you."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, cause Rosalie's very fond of me and she'll just share her twin with me happily," I said sarcastically

"Aw, Bell, come on," he said in a tired tone. "You know how Rose is… she's just a bit… misunderstood."

Misunderstood. That's putting it lightly; Rosalie just did not like me. I guess she blamed me for taking her twin away from her because Jas and I were best friends, and our relationship was better than his and Rose's. However, I always felt her hatred seemed severe for the situation.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever Jas. I don't really want to talk about it ok?" I said flatly.

"It's okay, Bell." After a pause, he added, "So… what's the plan tonight?"

I rolled my eyes. I liked how Jasper always managed to change the atmosphere of any conversation.

"Um.." I said hesitantly. I really didn't have anything to do. "I'll probably just go to sleep?"

Jasper laughed. "Okay Bell, whatever you say." He paused for a minute. "Call me if you need anything."

"Thanks Jas" I said with a smile. "You're the best." I said truthfully.

"No prob," he answered in an amused tone "that's what bff's are for, right?"

I snorted. "Yeah… right" I said between giggles. "See you tomorrow."

"Night, Bell." And with that our conversation was over.

I looked back at my nightstand and noticed that my clock registered that it was only 7:30. It was impossible for me to fall asleep so early so I decided to do things in slow motion.

I carefully took out a fresh set of pajamas and headed towards the bathroom. Taking my time in the shower, I thought about all the things that used to make me happy. My parents were in most of these memories. I thought back to the time where I honestly believed that my parents truly loved me. Those were the amazing days that I was certain I would never get back.

To everyone outside of the Swan household we were a happy family. Everyone was envious of our _relationship _with each other. But that was all a façade. They didn't see or hear all the things I've had to endure the past few years. Sure, they were mild compared to other horrendous things that happened in other people's households, but for me – a person who was not used to this… treatment – this was something big for me personally.

That's why I made a promise to myself that I would never love anybody. This may sound selfish but I just can't bring myself to love someone because I mess up everything I touch. In addition, I would hate to see a person broken because of me.

The water was running cold by the time I became mentally exhausted from all the thinking I had done

I got out of the shower and decided to blow dry my hair – just to waste time – and it did the trick. By the time I was finished and brushed my teeth it was already 9:00 pm.

_Decent time to go to sleep on a school night right? _I thought.

As I headed out of the bathroom, I heard my parents arguing some more and I hurried to my room because I didn't want to hear any of their accusations towards each other – or towards me for that matter. I am a very peaceful person, but one of these days, I'm going to snap. I've already had enough of their bullshit and it's literally getting in the way of everything I do.

I swiftly climbed in my bed as thoughts of a happier life drowned my consciousness. I felt the tears pouring out of my eyes as I thought of those times we used to go fishing. I never really liked it but it made me content to be out with my family – acting as a real family for once.

I cried myself to sleep, while I desperately prayed that I wouldn't have nightmares that night.

-x-x-

Morning came all too soon but I woke up with the surprise of seeing the sun shining. That was rare in Forks, so I took a minute to appreciate it. Glancing at my alarm clock, I noticed that it was time for me to get ready for school. I actually rather liked this time of day. It was the excitement of being in a different environment – even if it was Forks High's school grounds – but I figured that it was better than being locked in a house full of shouting and accusations.

I got ready for school just like any regular day. I picked out the first thing I saw in my closet – not caring if it matched or not – and just threw it on. My hair was pretty much done since I washed it the night before.

I grabbed my things and headed for the stairs. My excitement was short lived as soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

The house was quiet. I couldn't even hear the hum of the television in the living room. I dropped my bag as I slowly made my way to the kitchen. I stopped abruptly when I noticed the kitchen was impeccable. There was no breakfast on the table, no dirty dishes, no nothing – and this scared the shit out of me.

"Mother?" I whispered almost inaudibly.

Of course, there was no response. Making my way towards the living room, I saw her. She looked sick, like she hadn't slept the night before. She was curled up in the recliner staring blankly out the window.

"Mom?" I asked again, my voice laced with worry.

She didn't even acknowledge my presence. I approached her slowly and crouched down in front of her as I reached for her hand. As soon as our hands touched, she snapped back into reality and broke down.

"Oh, Isabella!" she cried as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me so tightly it hurt.

"Oh Bella… my Bella" she kept saying into my hair.

I was confused. What happened last night that Renee could be so upset? I knew I should have stayed awake last night, but was too selfish. I only thought of what _I _wanted at that moment and forgot about everything else. My parents' arguments always wore me out. I knew I had to help to make them understand that they should blame me for some of their arguments because I was the catalyst to most of their arguments.

"Shh, Mom, its ok." I said, rubbing her back trying to comfort her.

It always broke my heart to see her like this. She looked like her world was falling apart and she was watching it happen.

"No it's not," she sobbed. "No it's not."

I leaned back to look into her eyes. They were clouded with sadness and something else I couldn't fathom. Her eyes were unfocused for a second and I fought to make her hold my gaze.

I shook her and asked, my voice cracking, "Mother, what happened?" I couldn't stand to see her like this, especially knowing that I could have been the cause for her feeling like this.

I watched her as something suddenly lit up in her brain and she scanned the wall looking for the clock.

She stroked my cheek slowly, wiping off a tear that I hadn't noticed was there before she spoke.

"You have to get to school… you're going to be late" she smiled sadly at me.

"No!" I said firmly, closing my eyes.

"Isabella…" she said in a disapproving tone.

"No, Mom, I'm not moving until you tell me what's wrong." I said seriously, staring at her saddened angelic face.

She took a deep breath and stood up. "Bella.." she began, "please don't argue with me." She said tiredly. "Your education comes first…" she reached down and encased both her hands in mine. She looked me dead in the eye as she said her next statement.

"I promise we _will _talk… after school," she said as she squeezed my hands as emphasis.

I sighed, looking down at out hands "Ok, Mother." I said defeated.

"Good." She smiled at me then and dropped my hands.

She made her way towards the hallway and I followed quietly. She picked up my bag from where I had carelessly thrown it and handed it to me.

"Have a good day, Isabella," she said quietly as she kissed my forehead.

I merely nodded, not trusting my voice.

As I turned the doorknob, I heard my mother whisper. "I'm sorry about breakfast."

I walked out of the house as if I hadn't heard anything.

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Thanks to **Amy (Nolebucgrl)** for pre-reading this chapter and the betas from **PTB** for their editing help! :D

Feedback is always appreciated :)


	2. More Disagreements

A/N: Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of it's characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

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BPOV

By the time I reached Forks High, my mood had already gone to shit. I sat in my truck for a couple of minutes trying to digest what had just happened with Renée.

She seemed so… frightened – lost even. It honestly scared _me. _I had seen her and Dad fight before but I had never seen her so destroyed after one of their arguments. Normally, she would just take her frustrations out on me or just avoid everyone all together. It seemed strange that she had embraced me the way she had – I was not used to that kind of emotional display when it came to her.

Then something snapped. _Was Renée trying to tell me goodbye? _My eyes opened at the thought.

No, no. That couldn't be it, I thought as I shook my head fiercely. But honestly, I didn't understand, what was she trying to tell me?

My mind checked out for a few seconds before it went on autopilot for school. I got out of my truck and made my way to English. I settled in my seat at the back of the classroom – personal preference – and tried my hardest to focus on our current reading.

_Romeo and Juliet_. I never understood their love. Maybe the reason for that was because I actually didn't believe in love, but that was just my personal opinion. Since I was on autopilot today, I didn't seem to care about anything that was happening around me. Classes passed by in a blur and I couldn't pay attention because my thoughts were constantly wandering back to my mother.

All too soon, it was lunchtime. I had avoided Jasper all morning because I knew he would take one good look at my face and automatically know that something was off.

I made my way to the library just as I did every day and greeted Ms. Cope as soon as I walked in. I settled in at my usual table and began my assignments for the day. I was only slightly focusing on them when I heard someone walking towards me.

"There you are!" called Jasper, relief coating his voice. "I thought we were meeting up for lunch?"

I refused to acknowledge him.

When he noticed this, he pulled out the chair across from me and exhaled loudly. "Hey, what happened today, Bell?'

"Nothing happened," I whispered flatly, my eyes still glued to the book in front of me.

"That's a lie and you know it!" Jasper snapped

I flinched at the hardness of his voice but refused to look at him. I felt my cheeks and ears getting hot.

"I'm really not in the mood, J," I mumbled

"Bell?" he asked, still upset. I looked up at him but didn't answer.

He leaned over the table, staring at me expectantly. I blinked nervously – he knew I didn't like this type of scrutiny.

"J… I…" I paused, looking at my book again. I really didn't want to talk about this in school. I knew my carefully constructed wall was going to crumble if I replayed the whole situation for him at that moment. I just couldn't let myself become so vulnerable in this environment. I was _not _willing to consider that option.

"I really don't want to talk about it… here," I said slowly, pleading with him to understand my point.

"Okay."

I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he wouldn't press the issue anymore.

"So... what's up?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

He smiled and shook his head, amused. He knew damn well I what I was trying to do. "I was with Alice before I noticed you went MIA," he answered.

"Ahhhh…" I drawled out the word, and turned my gaze back to the assignment in front of me.

Alice was Jasper's girlfriend; she was nice, but she didn't seem to like me very much.

"So…" Jasper said, breaking me out of my thoughts. "I have to take Rose to the football game after school," he said, as he played around with one of my pens.

I chuckled lightly "She's still crushing on Emmett?" I asked.

Emmett was a senior _and_ captain of the football team, no less. Rosalie's crush on him was so intense that when school started, she made it her mission to transfer to _all _of Emmett's classes.

Even though Rosalie and Jasper were twins, Rosalie had skipped a grade when she was younger consequently allowing her to be a year ahead in her studies than Jasper.

"Yes, she is," Jasper sighed, slightly annoyed, "The worst part is she refuses to stop talking about him."

I couldn't help but laugh. "And how does that make you feel?" I asked, in my best imitation of a psychologist's voice.

He playfully glared at me but didn't get to answer before he bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch hour.

I gathered my things, placing them in my bag, and walked out of the library with Jasper.

"Do you want to come with us?" Jasper asked, as we stopped by our lockers.

"Where, the football game?" I replied.

"Yep, it's only me, Alice and Rose,"

I raised my eyebrows and stared at him. "Do you realize that two of the names you just mentioned belong to people that can barely stomach my presence?"

"Aww, come on Bell, I promise it won't be that bad."

"Easy for you to say," I mumbled, but I don't think he heard me since my voice was drowned out by the sound of an exaggerated sigh of relief.

"I've been looking everywhere for you, Jazzy!" Alice exclaimed happily, as she wrapped her arms around him.

Her excitement was short lived when she took notice of my presence.

"Oh... Hi, Bella," she said, the smile disappearing from her face.

Alice was a very pretty girl in my opinion. She had pale skin – just like most of Forks' population. Her small frame and pixie-like haircut made her appear almost childlike, that and she was at least four inches shorter than I was.

"Hi," I smiled tightly, "Um… I better get going, I'm gonna be late for class," I said, feeling out of place.

"'Kay. See you later Bell," Jasper called as I walked away, "You're in for the game, right?" he asked.

I turned, frowning "Umm…" I said hesitantly, glancing over at Alice – her gray eyes tightened slightly towards me as our eyes met– "I…" I bit my lip nervously trying to come up with an excuse.

"I have things to do today" I said hurriedly, "Bye," I muttered, tuning on my heel and heading to class.

Biology class was boring as usual. Mr. Banner kept us 'entertained' by talking about onion root cells. I never thought I could hate this class more than I already did until…

"So, class… tomorrow we'll be moving into a new, better equipped classroom," he said excitedly, "This means I'll have to split you guys up into partners."

Half of the class groaned, showing their disappointment. Partners. I hated working in groups. That just meant more work for me in the end.

Life just wasn't fair sometimes.

At least I had a day to wrap my mind around the whole arrangement. We weren't getting our partners arranged until the next class, and I was mildly relieved about that.

"We'll be meeting three rooms down from this one," Mr. Banner continued, "I'll post a sign on the door in case anyone gets lost."

I scoffed. Who in their right mind could ever possibly get lost in this diminutive school? Then again, it might be possible.

After a long lecture from Mr. Banner, class was finally over. I slowly put my books in order and left. I walked at a slow pace past the girls' locker room. I hated Gym with such a passion. I would have rather taken another subject over Gym a million times over.

I decided to do something very stupid. I skipped Gym. Not only I was not in the mood for dealing with people if they were injured because of my clumsiness but I most definitely didn't want Alice of all people to glare at me all period just because she felt like it.

I looked around – if my parents found out I was skipping class, I would be dead – making sure that nobody was following me and I made my way towards the exit.

The sunlight had disappeared and the sky was gray once again. The roaring, chilly wind was working as a warning – meaning it was going to rain soon.

I wrapped my jacket tightly around my body and hurried to my truck. I didn't turn on the engine for fear of being discovered. I was glad I always kept a blanket in the truck. I wrapped it around my jacket to keep me warm for the next forty-five minutes I was going to spend hidden there.

Instinctively, my mind flew to Renée. My heart beat furiously at the prospect of our upcoming conversation. I did not want to think of another separation between my parents. I didn't want a life like that anymore.

This may sound masochistic, but I would rather endure nasty comments towards me on a daily basis, than see my parents separated again. Last time it happened, it crushed me and it took me a long time to recover from it. Luckily, my Gran had been with me through all my previous breakdowns. But now that she had passed away, who was going to be there?

_What would I do if something like that happened again? _I thought. I knew Jas would be there for me but I didn't want to abuse his friendship. He had a life outside of me and my fucked up life and I really didn't want to cause any more problems.

In the meantime, I distracted myself. I took out my copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ and re-read the passage that I was supposed to be doing a paper on for class. I brainstormed ideas and got through the first page of my first draft when I heard the faint sound of the school bell ringing.

I took that as my cue to leave.

I started my truck and drove out of the parking lot. I made sure to drive slower than usual so I wouldn't raise any suspicions as to why I got home a bit earlier than normal.

As I drove home, I took interest in the trees around me – I needed some major distraction – many of them had lost all of their leaves already, while others had a few scattered in their branches.

The trees all looked beautiful, even the ones that were bare. I wondered if people's lives could be as easy as the leaves on the trees. They grow, they turn yellow or red, or orange – hell even pink and purple at times – and then they fell. Sure, they suffered; from the wind, the rain, and the sunlight but then again it benefitted them as well. It made them grow and look beautiful for the human eye to enjoy.

All too soon, I arrived home. I took my time putting my book back in my bag and walking up the steps to my house. I unlocked the front door and stepped in quietly.

I had not prepared myself for any kind of… anything that I would find when I got home so I was slightly nervous.

"Mom?" I called as I closed the door.

"In the living room," she answered. She sounded calm. I breathed a sigh of relief at this.

I dropped my bag at the foot of the stairs and headed towards the living room. Sure enough, Renée was sitting on the recliner watching some type of reality show on TV.

I took a seat on the sofa in front of her. "Are you okay?" I asked, tentatively.

"I'm fine," she answered. "How was your day?" she asked in turn, changing the subject without even glancing in my direction.

"Um, it was the usual," I replied, biting my lip.

I didn't know how to approach the subject without feeling worried. I started fidgeting with the sleeves of my jacket before I took a deep breath.

"Ok, Mother," I said with fierceness in my voice I didn't know I possessed.

She blinked twice before locking her gaze with mine and raising one eyebrow at me.

"I know something happened," I began, "You can't just pull off what you did this morning and expect me to act like nothing happened."

"I'm not discussing this with you, Isabella," she answered with finality, but I refused to let her tone deter me.

"Yes, you are," I retorted. "Believe it or not, I'm part of this family too and I think I deserve to know what happens in this household since it affects me as well," My voice had raised at least two decibels and I was leaning at the end of the couch, my eyes focused on her.

"Don't speak to me like that!" Renée growled, facing me. I flinched at her tone but refused to move my eyes from hers.

"I am still your mother and you have to respect me," she continued. "I don't have to discuss anything I don't want to with you."

I was angry. I hated this part of a teenager. You couldn't have a damn civilized conversation with your parents anymore. I felt blood rush to my face, getting hot with all the frustration I felt. I decided not to push it any farther before I said things I would surely regret in the future.

I stood up with my fists tightly clenched and glared at her from the corner of my eye. She had returned her attention to that shitty TV show she was watching as if nothing had happened; but her expression was different. She looked guarded.

Picking my book bag off the floor, I made my way up the stairs to my room, slamming the door in the process. Once safe in my room, I took a pillow off my bed and pressed it against my face, screaming all my frustrations into it.

I ended up giving myself a migraine. That was not good considering I had to go back to the kitchen in a couple of hours to make dinner and then complete homework for the next day.

I found some comfortable pajamas and changed. I made my way to the window, pulling the curtains closed and decided to try to sleep off the migraine so I would at least feel slightly better when I had to go downstairs and make dinner.

I went to bed, pulled my comforter all the way up to cover my face, and prayed that my headache would go away.

-x-x-

When I woke up around five, I decided to start dinner early. My head was still throbbing but it wasn't as bad as it had been.

I went downstairs and glanced towards the living room. Renée was still glued to the TV.

"Do you want anything special for dinner tonight?" I asked coolly.

Silence.

I took a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with water to drink. I stood leaning against the counter for about five minutes before I gave up waiting for an answer.

I went with simplicity and made spaghetti. I was able to finish early, leaving everything covered and returned to my room to start on my homework.

I was exceptionally glad I didn't have that much to do because with my ever-present headache I wasn't going to be able to concentrate much on anything, let alone final drafts. I was surprised I hadn't burned the spaghetti sauce.

I got through one first draft and a take home test when I heard Charlie's cruiser in the driveway.

I reached the bottom of the stairs just as he finished hanging his jacket and belt gun on the coat rack.

"Hi Dad," I greeted, walking past him to the kitchen to serve dinner.

"Hey," he muttered.

I settled the bowls and plates on the table while Charlie helped me with the glasses and silverware. Neither of us spoke during that moment and the tension was palpable.

"Dinner's ready!" I announced loudly so that Renée could hear me and decide if she wanted to get up from that damn couch.

We all sat and ate dinner quietly, that is until my dad decided to break the silence.

He cleared his throat. "How was your day, Bella?" he asked suddenly.

I stopped chewing. The last time he had asked me how my day was had been over a year ago.

Okay, now I was getting suspicious.

I finally answered "Um…" I swallowed, "It was okay… The usual school day," I looked up at him and noticed that there was a tight smile fighting its way onto his lips. His eyes looked soft, apologetic even.

It felt uncomfortable so I looked down at my plate and grabbed another bite.

I heard a fork clattering to my left and I jumped at the sound.

"What is wrong with you?" Renée sneered in a low voice, looking slowly towards Charlie with a cold expression.

Oh no. this was not happening. I did not want to be a part of another fight between them. Especially not at the dinner table. I quickly tried to think of something to distract them.

"Uhh... Hey, mom?" I said quickly "I'm getting a lab partner tomorrow for Biology class." My expression must have been one of fear.

Renée didn't even acknowledge me as she kept staring at Charlie with those cold blue eyes.

"Why are you acting like everything is normal around here?" she asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Charlie replied chewing his food. From his posture, I could see that he was trying not to lose his cool.

"You know damn well what I'm referring to, Charlie!" she argued, slamming her fist on the table.

I jumped at her action, feeling the migraine explode once again. I had to blink furiously to keep the tears from making their way out.

I couldn't handle this anymore. "Will you please shut up?" I screamed "Both of you!" I got up from the table so forcefully that the chair behind me fell backwards.

They both stood quietly while I started shaking from the anger that was bubbling up inside me. I could feel the tears running freely down my cheeks now but I could not let that stop me.

"I am so _sick and tired _of your behavior lately!" I continued with my voice raised. "When will you fu–" I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to try to calm myself.

"When will you understand… how much… this hurts me?" I almost whispered. My eyes were dancing angrily between the both of them.

"Well, it clearly doesn't show now, does it?" Renée claimed; her calm face even more terrifying than her angry one.

I shot her a disbelieving look "Are you… are you being serious right now?"

She looked at me with her typical raised brow, challenging me to continue the argument.

I laughed bitterly, "You know what? Fine," I said, venom coating my voice. "I can't _stand _to talk to _either _of you right now,"

Charlie was about to reply when I held my hand up to him. "_Save it!_"

I didn't even wait to hear his reaction. I picked up my plate and threw it in the sink. It clattered loudly; I just hoped that it was still in one piece.

I stomped up the stairs and went directly to the bathroom. I opened the top cabinet, took out two pills along with a glass, and filled it with water.

After I drank the pills, I turned on the shower and gradually changed the water temperature until it was steaming hot. I roughly stripped my clothes off my body and entered the shower.

The initial contact with the steaming hot water made me jump, but I quickly recovered.

Thinking about what had just occurred in the kitchen and my headache and the hot water consequentially made me cry out.

I let out a sob that frightened even my own ears but I couldn't hold it in anymore. I was breaking – slowly into small pieces – and my parents failed to notice this. My parents, the ones who supposedly loved me more than anyone and anything in this world.

The water started getting cold and I shivered slightly at the change of temperature. In my angry haste, I had forgotten to bring my sleepwear with me into the bathroom, so now I had to walk back to my room in a towel. _Way to make me feel more uncomfortable – in my own house no less, _I thought.

I hurriedly went to my room and locked the door behind me. I didn't want either of my parents barging into my room asking for fake apologies. I could not tolerate that tonight.

I quickly dried myself off and dressed for bed. I had spread my school things across the bed earlier and I hastily moved them and placed them on the desk, not bothering to organize them for the next day.

Climbing into bed, I turned and faced my window. The clouds outside were dense and thick. They reminded me of those old haunted house type movies. I closed my eyes and took a deep shuddering breath, hoping the darkness could ease the pounding in my head and the next day would bring some type of peace and not the sorrow foreshadowed by the clouds.

* * *

Thanks to **Amy (Nolebucgrl)** for pre-reading this chapter and the Betas from **PTB** for their editing help! :D

Feedback is always appreciated :)


	3. New Lab Partner

A/N: Major thanks to everyone reading out there. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

BPOV

Sleep was difficult. I kept waking up every thirty minutes to the same nightmare. I was afraid to sleep now; everything about the nightmare felt so real, and as much as I tried to push it past me, I just couldn't let it go.

I was thankful my headache had subsided a bit, but it was still there, haunting me. It was just one more thing I couldn't avoid anymore. I hadn't told my parents that I'd been suffering from bad headaches for the past two years. They had too much to worry about without me adding one more issue.

If they'd gotten suspicious about why there is a new bottle of Tylenol or Advil nearly every other month, then they'd kept it quiet. However, I doubted they noticed anything.

My bed felt uncomfortable. I kept tossing around for a long time before I concluded that I was indeed no longer going to be able to fall asleep for the night. I glanced at my alarm clock; the red numbers blazed 3:25am. _This is going to be a long night, _I thought.

Finally, I made the decision to get out of bed and look for something to pass the time with until it was time for me to get ready for school.

I stood in front of my bedroom window thinking of what I was going to do when I noticed a light was on in Jasper's house. At first, I thought about calling him, to talk for a while. Then I thought against it; he would probably be sleeping just like any other normal person our age.

I moved across my room and covered the bottom of my door with the rug so the light wouldn't peek out from underneath the door when I turned it on and alert my parents that I was awake. I remembered that I hadn't fixed my school bag in my haste to go to sleep earlier. I made my way to my desk, looked through my papers for what I was going to need the following school day, and placed all the contents in my bag.

I decided to get a head start on my day and started mentally preparing myself, knowing damn well I was going to have to endure an entire school day with a headache.

I tried to read ahead for some of my classes in case I decided not to pay attention in class or my headache became too much for me to concentrate.

By the time I had finished with all my subjects it was already 5:00am. I was thankful for how fast the time was moving, but it also saddened me to know that I only had two more hours completely to myself.

I picked out my outfit for school (something I rarely did). I chose my regular jeans, a black t-shirt and my trusty rain boots since it looked like it was going to be raining all day. I also picked out a pair of sunglasses. I always used sunglasses when I had headaches like this. I already owned at least 10 pairs. When I finished, I climbed into bed, trying to seek sleep for at least an hour.

It felt as if I had closed my eyes for literally five minutes when I woke up to the loud shrill of my alarm clock. The sound penetrated my eardrums painfully, which was not helpful to my headache.

I climbed out of bed carefully after succeeding in shutting off the offending sound and grabbed my small bag of toiletries that I always carried with me.

The house was bright, since most of the lights were on. I figured Charlie must have been making his breakfast before going down to the station.

I padded my way quietly to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I put on a shower cap – forgoing washing my hair – and quickly took a shower. Afterwards, as I was brushing my teeth, I noticed my reflection in the mirror.

_Ugh! I look disgusting! _I thought.

My paleness looked sickening and adding to that, the fact that I was barely able to sleep the night before made me look worse. I could clearly see how droopy my eyes looked and the purplish circles under them. I made a quick decision to wear a bit of concealer to try to hide them from prying eyes – which, roughly translated, meant Jasper.

I quickly dressed myself and made sure I had all the notes I was going to need for the day before making my way downstairs.

I was all alone with Renée. I honestly did not want another disagreement between us, so I entered the kitchen quietly, where Renée was sitting calmly reading the morning's newspaper. I walked around her and put a slice of bread in the toaster while I fetched the carton of orange juice from the fridge.

"Good morning to you too, Isabella," Renée suddenly said, without raising her eyes from the article she was reading. "The juice is on the table already."

"Um, good morning, Mom," I answered, biting my lip nervously.

I poured myself a glass and put it back on the table.

I stood with my back to her as I quietly ate my toast and drank my juice. When I was finally finished, I cleaned the dish I used and excused myself to finish getting ready for school.

There was too much tension in my house, and I could feel it. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I went back to my room to grab my keys and hurried down the stairs to leave. I briefly glanced at the kitchen on my way out and noticed that Renée was no longer sitting at the table. I decided to be polite and went to the living room to tell her that I was leaving.

"I'm leaving, Mom," I announced, rounding the corner to the living room.

"Have a nice day," she responded coldly.

I decided not to antagonize her and left her to her own devices. I put on my coat and sunglasses by the doorway. As I walked outside, I noticed it hadn't started raining yet and that people probably thought I looked ridiculous wearing sunglasses when it was cloudy, but this was one aspect in which I preferred being comfortable to what other people thought.

I walked to my truck and quickly started the engine, wanting to get out of the cold weather rather quickly.

I got to school early, so I had a few minutes to spare. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes to try to catch up on some sleep. A few minutes later, someone knocked on the window.

I opened my eyes and saw Jasper waving enthusiastically at me.

Gathering my bag, I got out and greeted him. His smile faltered noticeably as soon as he saw me wearing my sunglasses.

"Aw, Bell," he said, "headache again?"

"You know it," I answered, faking enthusiasm.

He placed his arm around my shoulder and we walked silently towards the school building.

"So… how was the game yesterday?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"Ehh... I wasn't paying attention," he started. "Alice and I were... um – distracted," he chuckled, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Ugh! You pig!" I exclaimed, my face scrunching up in disgust.

We were nearing the front doors and I took off my sunglasses as soon as we were in the building. Jasper and I walked in silence until we reached our lockers.

"Hey, mind telling me what caused your migraine today?" he began, "Or what happened with you yesterday so that you barely talked to me?" He was using his 'don't give me your bullshit' tone.

I sighed. "Uh, it was nothing," I answered, shaking my head. "You know, just the Charlie-Renée recent hate-fest," I finished dismissively.

Jasper looked suspicious. "It must have been intense then since you didn't call me back yesterday."

I furrowed my brows in confusion. "You called me last night?"

I was suddenly rummaging through my bag looking for my cell phone, but no luck there. I checked my jean pockets and came up empty. I must have left it home.

"Shit," I whispered

"Yeah, I did," Jasper assured me. "I figured you were sleeping or something when you didn't answer."

"Uh, yeah… I went to sleep… early, I mean," I replied absently while still checking every possible place for my phone.

"What's up?" he asked finally noticing my distraction.

"I think I left my phone at home... or worse, maybe I lost it."

"When was the last time you used it?"

"After I texted you for the millionth time about not going to the game," I remembered.

"Where'd you put it afterwards?"

I backtracked for a second. It then occurred to me that I had plugged my phone to charge on my bedside table after Jasper's text.

My eyes widened in acknowledgment. "It's on my bedside table!" I pointed out.

He just laughed at me and patted my head. "Good job, Bell! Would you like a treat with that?"

"Jerk!" I muttered, closing my locker and making my way towards English class.

"See ya!" he called after me.

-x-x-

English passed in a blur since I already knew what the class was going to be about. I found it easier to concentrate that way. It surprised me when Mr. Mason decided to give us a pop quiz on Act IV of Romeo and Juliet.

I breathed a sigh of relief, remembering I had finished reading the play the day before, so I had a basic idea of what the quiz's contents would be.

As Mr. Mason passed out the quiz, I heard several students groan in disapproval at the questions that were there.

"Oh, give it a rest. At least it's multiple choice," he indicated. Everyone instantly looked up at him with sheer horror plastered on their faces.

The quiz was easy. It mostly consisted of Paris and Juliet's conversation and I was able to finish rather quickly.

I gathered my things and made my way towards the front of the class, quiz in hand. Mr. Mason did not look surprised at all when he noticed I was the first one who handed the completed assignment. After all, I was a 'gifted' student.

"Very good, Ms. Swan," he expressed, as I passed him my assignment, "You may go."

"Thank you," I answered, quickly exiting the classroom.

I was glad class was over. Even though I had not had a rough time yet, I enjoyed having a few moments to myself before facing my other classes.

I really was not looking forward to Biology class. The mere thought that I was going to have a lab partner for the rest of the year unnerved me.

I wondered who the lucky person assigned to work with me would be. I just hoped he or she was a decent worker, because I really didn't feel like working for two people.

The bell rang then and I went to History class.

Spanish class was different. I enjoyed that class. It may have to do with the fact that I was able to learn a few words in a different language, but it also helped me keep distracted whenever I didn't want to think about specific things.

Like Renée, for example. I couldn't believe she had the nerve to tell me that I didn't show the way they were hurting me. Was she that blind? Did she expect me to just show up bawling my eyes out and try to confront them every single day?

Heck no! I always tried my hardest to keep them happy with me, but that was still not enough for them. And I'd never had the guts to stand up to them.

I didn't know what to do anymore. Maybe –

"Señorita Swan?" My thoughts were interrupted when I heard _Señorita_ Carmen call my name.

"Uh... Si?" She was staring at me with her arms crossed and a disapproving look on her face. She probably thought I wasn't paying attention in class.

"Me puedes leer esta oración?she asked, pointing to the assignment on the board.

"Si, dice: todos vamos… a jugar… al parquet," I answered, not feeling confident about my pronunciation.

Good thing she smiled, letting me know that what I said was not a complete mess. "Muy bien!" she exclaimed.

I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I hadn't just made a complete fool out of myself in front of the class. The last thing I needed was attention.

After that little incident with Señorita Carmen, class went by relatively quickly. I was eager to go to Trigonometry because it was the only class I shared with Jas, and we always made fun of Mr. Varner's Australian accent.

The entire class groaned when he passed out a huge work packet that we were supposed to complete in the next two days and return to him the following Monday.

"Hey! Mind if come over so we can work on this?" Jas whispered, waving his packet in the air.

I shrugged, "Of course not, I'm sure I'm going to need help with it too," I answered.

"Cool!' he smiled, facing the front of the class.

-x-x-

All too soon, it was time for Biology. I prayed all throughout lunch that I would get a decent lab partner. I arrived right when the warning bell rang.

As I walked into our new classroom, I noticed that Mr. Banner was already in his seat and most of the students had lined up on the wall closest to the door. I made my way towards an empty space at the back of the line when Mr. Banner spoke.

"We'll just wait a few more minutes for everyone to arrive," he announced.

When the late bell rang, Mr. Banner stood up with what I assumed was our seating arrangement in his hand. He closed the door rather loudly to make sure that we all had his attention.

"Before I start, I would just like to inform all of you that these arrangements are final. I will not be switching around partners."

At this point, I didn't want to think about partners, I just wanted a seat that would be closer to the back of the room.

I tuned out Mr. Banner's voice until I heard him call my name. I was surprised to see almost half of the class was seated already.

"Ms. Swan… you will be partnered with Mr. Cullen," he explained, while pointing to the table we were supposed to be sitting at.

I recognized almost everyone in the junior class, but this last name sounded unusual. It was as if it was familiar, but I couldn't quite place where it came from.

I made my way towards the stool closest to the window at our table and sat down carefully. I was looking out the window seeking some distraction, when I heard my partner clear his throat next to me.

"Hi, Isabella, I'm Edward Cullen," he introduced himself, offering his hand to shake.

"Hello, Edward," I answered, shaking his hand. "If you don't mind, I prefer when people call me Bella," I said.

"That's fine," he assured me, giving me a shy smile.

I had to admit, he had a pretty smile. In fact, he was pretty in general. He had an unusual hair color. It wasn't brown, but it wasn't red either. The only reasonable description for this color would be reddish brown… or bronze. His hair was a bit long and looked like he spent hours running his fingers through it.

Something else I found interesting were his eyes. They were the exact same color as an emerald – that hypnotizing dark green. They were really deep and entrancing and I found myself staring at them briefly before I forced my eyes to look elsewhere.

I was about to ask him another question, when Mr. Banner decided to interrupt my train of thought and start the class.

"Well, class, I decided to start things differently for today," he began. "I would like for you all to take today's class time to get to know your partner. Get their information, exchange phone numbers, etcetera."

He walked towards his desk quickly and addressed us one last time. "Note that this will be the _only _time I will allow you all to use your cell phones," he concluded sternly.

After his little speech, Mr. Banner left us to our own devices and soon, every student in the classroom was speaking, their voices sounding like a dull hum in my ears.

I turned towards Edward, ready ask him a couple of questions, when I noticed that he was staring at me. The way he looked at me was as if he was trying to memorize something, or he was watching something that fascinated him.

I could already feel my cheeks turning red with embarrassment as I casted my eyes down.

"So, um, Edward, are you new to this school?" I asked him quietly.

My question seemed to break him out of his trance because he blinked a couple of times in surprise before answering me.

"Yes… and no," he stated.

I tilted my head to the side, contemplating his answer. It didn't make sense no matter how I tried to decipher it. I mean, I'd ever seen him in any of my classes so far.

"I've been in Forks High since the beginning of sophomore year. So you could say I'm new here, but in a way I'm not," he explained further.

"That's nice."

"We also share the same Spanish class," he said suddenly.

My head snapped up in surprise. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, my seat is on the same row as yours, except all the way to the back," he assured me.

That was weird. I thought I knew everyone in that class. I knew Señorita Carmen didn't take attendance daily due to the fact that she already recognized every student, but I'm pretty sure I'd ever seen Edward in that class.

I seemed at a loss of words at his statement, so I started biting my lip nervously.

"It's okay if you've never seen me. You always walk into class with your head down, so you probably wouldn't have noticed anyway," he said.

He did have a point there. I always tried to avoid staring at people's eyes for a long period. I felt like they were reading my whole life and I couldn't hide if they were looking so pointedly at my eyes.

"I'm sorry." I smiled apologetically.

"No need to apologize," he said. "Now tell me about you."

"Well…" I began. I told him the basics about me. How I lived in Forks as a kid, then moved to Phoenix and then back to Forks again. I also told him about my best friend. He seemed fascinated with everything I had to say, even when I mentioned my antique truck.

He asked me what my parents looked like and I showed him a family picture that I always carried with me in my wallet. It was my favorite picture of us.

"You look younger in this picture," he noticed.

"Yeah, it was a while ago." _When we were actually happy, _I added internally.

After he handed me back the picture, we spent the rest of the hour aimlessly talking about different things – Biology not included.

"What made you move to Forks, out of all the places in the U.S?"

"My – my parents wanted to move to a quieter place. We used to live in Chicago." I noticed how hesitant his voice was at the mention of his parents.

The bell rang before I could ask him another question and I gathered my things quickly. I waved to Edward, signaling that I was leaving, when he suddenly called after me.

"Hey, Bella, wait up!"

I was already out of the classroom and saw him speed walk toward me.

"Um, in class, we were actually supposed to swap phone numbers and whatnot, so I was wondering…" He trailed off, scratching the back of his head.

He actually looked nervous for a minute.

"Yeah, sure," I shrugged, holding my hand out.

He handed me his phone and I quickly put my information in. When I handed back his phone, he was looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"What?" I asked.

"Do you own a cell phone?"

"Oh, yeah," I answered. "I forgot it at home today." I chuckled nervously and he laughed along with me. He had an appealing laugh.

"Just send me a text or something and I'll save your number when I get home," I said.

"Okay, that's cool."

I checked my watch then, and noticed that I was already running late for Gym.

"Edward, I've gotta run, I'm already late for class and I have to change," I rushed.

"Oh, that's fine, Bella, I'll see you around then," he said, walking in the opposite direction of the hall.

"Bye!" I called after him.

To say that today was different was true in so many ways. I felt comfortable talking to Edward. He seemed like a nice enough person to hang out with and he didn't push me for explanations.

I just hoped we could be friends and not only assigned lab partners.

* * *

Spanish translations:

"_Señorita_ Swan?" = Ms. Swan

"_Me puedes leer esta oración?"_ = can you read this sentence for me?

"_Si, dice: todos vamos… a jugar… al parque," _= Yes, it says: we're all going to play in the park.

"_Muy bien!" _= very good!

-x-x-

So... I have two stories to rec:

1. **Sacrificial Lamb** by **Nolebucgrl**: If you didn't like the ending of Eclipse (i.e. B/J kiss, etc.) or BD, then I suggest you read this story. Here's the summary: Redo on the end of Eclipse and replacing BD; when Jacob kisses Bella in the woods after threatening to kill himself. Bella does not have any love for Jacob other than friendship. She embarks on her life with Edward. AU You will have an awesome time reading it. (I know I did)

2. **Lost In Between** by **ginginlee**: Very realistic coming of age story. It is not set in Forks, WA and I can guarantee you it's awesome. Summary: A coming of age tale following two almost-adults as they face the perils of moving to a new town, finding themselves, and falling in love for the first time. A story of friendship, love, growing up, and change. AH

-x-x-

Thanks to **Amy (Nolebucgrl)** for pre-reading this chapter and the betas from **PTB** for their editing help! :D

Feedback is always appreciated :)


	4. Starting With The Right Foot

A/N: Hi everyone! Happy Thanksgiving (to those who celebrate it)

Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing, and all those who've put this story on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

EPOV

"Edward… Edward… Edward!"

I could faintly hear someone calling my name, but I didn't have the strength to open my eyes.

I couldn't sleep the night before. I was too nervous thinking about the upcoming school day. Biology class, specifically. Since we were moving to a different classroom, Mr. Banner was forced to split the class up in partner groups because of the room's settings.

What got me nervous the most was the fact that I shared that class with Isabella Swan and that meant I had a minimal chance of being her Biology partner for the rest of the year.

I had been living in Forks for the past year already and ever since I started attending Forks High, I noticed her.

She caught my attention the way no other girl back home did. I mean, sure, they were pretty attractive, but there was just something different about Isabella.

I used to see her all the time in between classes during sophomore year and I'd always wanted to talk to her, but she was never alone. She always hung out with a blonde kid; I think his name was Jasper.

At first, I thought he was her boyfriend or something because of how much I used to see them together, but then I found out from one of my classmates that he was her best friend and he already had a girlfriend.

To say I was relieved was an understatement.

So when I found out I had a class with her, I made up my mind and decided that I would at least talk to her or be her friend.

"Edward, you have to get up… _NOW_" I heard Esme say.

I could hear her shuffling through my room and then suddenly a blinding light covered the whole space.

I groaned. "Can I just have five more minutes?" I asked, covering my face with my pillow.

"No, you already had fifteen. Get up this instant or you're going to be late," she replied, ripping the pillow away from my face and taking it with her.

"Don't make me come back up here, Edward Cullen." She warned, walking out of my room with my pillow under her arm.

"Alright, alright, I'm up," I said. I was already starting to get irritated. That wasn't a good feeling so early in the morning.

I finally got out of bed and went straight to the bathroom. I took my sweet time brushing my teeth and taking a shower. I wanted to be as relaxed as possible.

After I got ready, I went downstairs and walked in the kitchen at the same time Esme was filling up two glasses with orange juice.

_Dad's not having breakfast with us? Weird. _

"Hey, Ma," I greeted, walking up to her and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Good morning, Edward. How did you sleep?" she asked.

I loved seeing my mom in the morning. She always looked so chipper and well rested. I wonder if she'd ever suffered through a sleepless night due to nerves.

"Eh… not so good," I answered.

Right after we moved to Forks, I had confessed to my mom that I liked Isabella but I had never had the balls to talk to her.

At the time, she just told me to follow my instincts and do what felt right to me; well… the outcome wasn't so good. The day that I had the opportunity to actually speak to Isabella, I chickened out and I hadn't tried since then.

I didn't know what it was about her, but Isabella intimidated me. She was a smart girl – that I could clearly tell – and sometimes I felt that if I had approached her, she wouldn't acknowledge me or not even want to talk to me.

But this time I had a plan. I had finally convinced myself to talk to her and try to be friends with her. If that meant I had to ask her friend Jasper for help, then I would.

"Aw, don't worry too much, Edward. I'm sure everything will work out." Esme smiled encouragingly at me, and I couldn't help but feel a surge of confidence within me.

I sat down and ate my breakfast. Halfway through it, I noticed my dad still wasn't here and the curiosity got the best of me.

"Dad's not coming down for breakfast today?" I asked.

Esme took a sip of her juice before answering. "No, he's not. He took the day off at the hospital, so he's sleeping in."

That was definitely weird. Carlisle rarely took a day off work, unless it was something absolutely important.

I had to leave for school or else I would be late for my first class. I ate quickly and went to my room to gather my things.

It was such a pain in the ass to have to carry one of my textbooks every day just because my teacher required it. Call me lazy but I honestly thought of dropping that class once just for that inconvenience alone.

I never thought I would need to know so many terms, dates and battles just to understand American history. That book literally looked like an encyclopedia. It hurt your arms just looking at it.

I went back downstairs and told Esme that I was leaving.

"Have a good day and good luck," she winked at me while giving me two thumbs up.

I went to school feeling five pounds lighter and ten pounds heavier all at the same time.

-x-x-

Classes dragged. I felt like time was passing by in slow motion and I definitely wanted to fast-forward it to Biology class.

_Like that was possible._

I could barely concentrate during my morning classes. The only class that I felt a bit calmer in was Spanish class, since I also shared that class with Isabella.

At the same time that I was relieved to see that she was not absent, I was also worried. She didn't look okay. She was dressed the way she normally did, but something wasn't right.

She walked in the classroom and towards her seat at a slower pace than normal. Even though she walked in with her head down – as she always did – I caught a glimpse of her face. She looked annoyed and tired.

I immediately wondered what could have happened to her that she looked this way.

From what I had noticed before, Isabella was a bright student, so I was shocked when I heard _Señorita_ Carmen called on her because she wasn't paying attention. That just made me think more about what was wrong with her. I desperately wanted to talk to her, but I was still too nervous.

As soon as the bell rang, I picked up my things quickly and sloppily threw them in my bag.

By the time I looked up, Isabella was already gone.

-x-x-

My next class was uneventful. I couldn't bring myself to focus much on it. I was glad the class finished early, but by the time lunchtime rolled around, my stomach was already in knots.

I got on the line, just like every day, and bought my usual lunch. I wasn't really hungry, but I figured I had to at least try and force myself to eat something.

After paying for my lunch, I quickly walked towards my table. Apparently, I was late since the table was already filled with people.

I normally shared a table with Mike Newton, Tyler Crowley, Ben Cheney, Jessica Stanley, and Lauren Mallory. Even though I shared a table with them didn't mean we were friends. We were more like acquaintances. I had several classes with them, and we were social to each other, but that was it.

I played around with the food on my tray, all the while thinking about what was bound to happen in Biology class. Again.

_What if Isabella doesn't end up being my lab partner?_

_What if she does?_

_What if she doesn't want to talk to me?_

_Would I be able to_ finally _speak to her without failing?_

My internal battle was abruptly interrupted when I felt something cold and slippery sliding down the side of my face.

I quickly wiped off what was on my face and looked at what it was. Applesauce. Then I saw Mike trying to cover his laughter.

"What the fuck, Newton!" I said angrily, while throwing the remaining sauce from my hand at his face.

"Shit! Watch it, Cullen," he replied.

"How's la-la land today?" he asked, smirking.

I just glared at him. I'd never been aware of daydreaming while everyone seemed to carry out a conversation around me. The only reason I noticed was because of moments like these and the fact that I never knew what the hell they were talking about unless they eventually told me.

"I'm gonna act like I didn't hear that, Newton."

"_Anyways… _are you trying out for the football team next season?" he asked.

I don't know why he kept asking me the same question over and over. Ever since the school year started, I had made it clear that I would not be joining any team. That just wasn't my thing. Back in Chicago, I had been on every team my school offered – except for golf – but there was something about the way these guys interacted with their teammates that I just didn't feel comfortable with – hence, my decision to not want to join any team.

I took a deep breath, running my hands through my untamable hair, thinking ahead of what I was going to answer him.

"How many times am I going to say it?" I questioned him in response.

He brought his hands up in surrender, shaking his head simultaneously. "I thought you would've changed your mind by now," he stated.

"What makes you think that?" I was already irritated since the beginning of the hour and this ass was just making my day worse.

"Come on, Cullen! What? Are you afraid of getting dirty?"

I was just about to lose it before Ben interrupted.

"Mike, just let it go." I was still glaring at Newton while Ben spoke. "If he doesn't wanna join, then he won't. Stop forcing people."

Finally! Someone understood. I guess Ben had been suffering the same shit from Newton and was already used to it.

I glanced at him, giving him a nod as a thank you before leaning back in my seat.

After that, lunch was rather uneventful. Jessica and Lauren tried to keep us entertained with the most recent gossip about everyone in the junior class. I tuned them out as I normally did. I really didn't care for who fucked who or if some girl was wearing designer clothes from two season ago. I just rolled my eyes at them every time I heard some immature comment coming out of their mouth.

I didn't even touch my food. I was surprised my stomach wasn't growling, but I guess the nerves worked that way. As soon as the bell rang I bolted out of my seat, muttering a quick goodbye to everyone at the table and dumping my tray in the garbage.

I made my way towards the new Biology classroom.

Ever since I had woken up this morning, I had the feeling that everything was going to work out the way I wanted it to. That thought alone made me want to reach the classroom that much sooner.

As soon as I walked in the classroom, I looked around. There were a few students in there already and apparently, Mr. Banner was making us line up at the far end of the classroom. As I took a spot on the wall, I noticed how different the classroom was – even the lighting was brighter and I was glad for that.

I was starting to feel a bit disappointed because I hadn't seen Isabella walk in and the bell was about to ring. As soon as the warning bell rang, she rushed in the classroom, looking around – just as most of us did when we came in – and walked towards the back of the room.

Mr. Banner announced that he was going to wait a few minutes until the rest of the students arrived so that everyone was present when he called out names.

While Mr. Banner was calling out names, I noticed the way he was arranging us. He took the first letter of someone last name close to the beginning of the alphabet and paired that person with someone who's last name started towards the end of the alphabet. I noticed this after he paired up Ben with Jessica.

"Mr. Cullen." I heard my name being called and immediately noticed Mr. Banner looking in my direction.

"Yes," I answered.

"You will be working with… Ms. Swan."

_What? _My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I heard this. Mr. Banner instantly became my favorite teacher for the year.

I think Isabella had been distracted because Mr. Banner had to call her name two more times in order to get her attention. When she heard whom she was working with, a look of indifference crossed her face. She walked towards the table we were assigned to and I noticed that she was biting her lip.

She sat down and immediately turned her head to look out the window. I was suddenly nervous again. I ran my fingers through my hair hoping that the motion would calm me down before I actually talked to her. I decided just to be simple, so I cleared my throat to get her attention.

"Hi Isabella, I'm Edward Cullen," I introduced myself, holding my hand out for a handshake.

"Hello, Edward," she answered, shaking my hand. "If you don't mind, I prefer when people call me Bella."

"That's fine," I answered, giving her a small smile.

I didn't know what else to say for the moment, so I chose to just look at her. She was studying my face carefully, as if she were trying to remember if she knew me from some place.

God! She was even prettier up close.

Her big, brown eyes were intriguing. I completely got lost in them in those few minutes of silence we shared.

Mr. Banner – God bless his heart – gave us the day to get to know our partners better. My eyes were still glued towards Bella's profile. I faintly listened to Mr. Banner as he finished giving instructions for the day. My mind was still trying to find the correct word to describe Bella.

She turned her head and noticed me watching her. Her face immediately flushed a nice crimson color and she looked downwards to her feet.

"So um, Edward, are you new to this school?" she asked, almost inaudibly.

I blinked in surprise. I wasn't expecting her to know who I was or anything, but it surprised me to know that she hadn't noticed that I'd been in Forks High since sophomore year and we had shared a couple of classes.

"Yes… and no," I answered.

She looked confused by my answer, so I explained further what I meant.

"We have the same Spanish class," I blurted out.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, my seat is on the same row as yours, except all the way to the back." I assured her.

"Uhh…" She bit her lip thoughtfully. She seemed at a loss of words at what I just told her.

She probably never noticed me in class. She always walked in with her head down and never looked up until Ms. Carmen started class.

"It's okay if you've never seen me. You always walk into class with your head down, so you probably wouldn't have noticed anyway," I said quietly.

"I'm sorry," she smiled guiltily.

"No need to apologize," I said. "Now tell me about you."

"Well, I've lived in Forks for the majority of my childhood. Then I moved to Phoenix with my mom, and then we moved back here a couple of years ago," she started.

I noticed she didn't mention her father when she said she moved to Phoenix, but I decided not to comment on it. I figured I'd ask her some other time.

"I also own a very nice truck that can turn your car into scrap metal," she added.

"Wait. That rusty Chevy is yours?" I asked, pointing to the red truck in the parking lot.

"Yup."

"No comment," I said.

"Have you ever seen me hanging around with a blond kid?" she asked.

I knew she was referring to Jasper. "Umm yeah, the one that's always with the hyper pixie?"

She laughed. "Yup! That's Jasper, he's my best friend..." She paused before continuing, "…and the hyper pixie is his girlfriend."

"Cool. What do your parents look like?"

I honestly didn't know why I was asking her these questions. They were so random; definitely not the things you ask someone when you first meet them. At the rate I was going, she probably thought I would never let her ask me anything.

"I look mostly like my mom, but I have my dad's eyes. Here, I'll show you." She grabbed her bag and took out a small picture she had in her wallet.

It was both of her parents sitting on either side of her. She was holding each of their hands in her lap while her parents formed a hug around her with their free arms. They all wore smiles on their faces and were wearing matching brown and white sweaters, but I noticed one little detail – the picture was old; Bella looked much, much younger in it.

"You look younger in this picture," I noted.

"Yeah, it was a while ago," she said. I managed to catch the sad tone her voice had taken.

"So… what do you do on your own time?" she asked.

"I like to read… a lot. And I'm also teaching myself how to play the guitar."

"That's interesting," she said enthusiastically.

"What about you?" I asked in return.

"Well, basically the same thing… except I'm not teaching myself how to play guitar or any instrument for that matter." She smiled sheepishly.

I nodded.

We spent a good five minutes in silence before she asked more questions.

"What made you move to Forks out of all the places in the U.S?"

I dreaded that question. I never really liked taking about why exactly I moved here, but I guess I couldn't hide it forever. I tried to keep my conversation light with Bella, so I answered with the most obvious answer.

"My – my parents wanted to move to a quieter place. We used to live in Chicago," my voice sounded unsure and hesitant. I hoped Bella didn't pick that little detail up.

She merely nodded and started to ask me another question when the bell rang.

I shoved my things in my bag and noticed Bella was waving me goodbye. I realized I didn't follow through with one of Mr. Banner's assignments for the day, and I was glad he assigned it because it gave me an excuse to ask for her phone number.

"Hey Bella, wait up!" I called after her, right when she walked outside the classroom. I thought she hadn't heard me, but I was proved wrong when she peaked back through the doorway.

I walked quickly towards her, thinking of the smoothest way I could ask her for her number, but I was drawing a blank. So, again, I went with the obvious.

"Um, in class, we were actually supposed to swap phone numbers and whatnot, so I was wondering…" I trailed off, scratching the back of my head – it was a nervous habit of mine.

She shrugged. "Yeah, sure," she said, extending her hand out for my phone.

I realized she didn't give me her phone and I couldn't help but wonder if she actually had one.

What if she didn't want to give me her number? No, that couldn't be it because if it was, then she would've never asked me to hand her my phone in the first place.

She noticed my puzzled expression after giving me back my phone.

"What?"

"Do you own a cell phone?" I asked

"Oh, yeah… I forgot it at home today," she answered, chuckling slightly. I couldn't help but laugh myself. I guess I was overreacting.

"Just send me a text or something and I'll save your number when I get home," she said.

"Okay, that's cool."

She checked her watch then. She was probably running late to class – just like I was at the moment.

"Edward, I gotta run. I'm already late for class and I have to change," she rushed.

"Oh, that's fine, Bella. I'll see you around then," I said, walking in the opposite direction of the hall.

"Bye!" I heard her call after me. By the time I turned around, she wasn't in sight.

-x-x-

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I couldn't pay attention in my last class because all I thought about was the last 45 minutes I had spent talking to Bella. I felt like a thirteen year old who had just said hi to his long life crush. Except in my case, I wasn't thirteen.

I probably had a stupid grin plastered on my face for the rest of my class and on the way home.

When I got there, Esme quickly noticed my good mood once she glanced at me. She was on the couch reading a new book.

"I see everything went well," she stated, smiling at me. Her caramel eyes were shining. I wondered what she was thinking at the moment.

"Actually… better than well," I admitted.

"From the look on your face, I'd bet it was."

I shrugged, not being able to come up with a good answer.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Maybe later, I have a lot of work to get done," I said, walking towards the staircase.

I dashed up to my room and got started on my homework. In the middle of my History assignment, I remembered I was supposed to text Bella so that she could save my number.

I didn't do it as soon as I got out of Bio because I didn't want to seem desperate. I mean, I really liked the girl, but there was only so much I could do at this point in time.

I thought of a million and one ways on how to send her an appropriate text when I gave up and just sent her a text saying a very lame 'Hi it's Edward.'

It wasn't until later that night that I received an answer from her.

"_Thanks! I saved ur number, -B"_

I was floating on happiness for the rest of the night and I realized that I had already broken the ice by talking to her, and now the hard part was most likely over.

* * *

Thanks to **Amy (Nolebucgrl)** for pre-reading this chapter and the betas from **PTB** for their editing help! :D

Feedback is always appreciated :)


	5. Making Amends  Sort of

A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks to all of you for reading and reviewing, and all those who've put this story on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

BPOV

The rest of the week was uneventful. My classes were their same boring selves except for Trigonometry and Biology.

Jasper and I spent the majority of the class period goofing off because Mr. Varner had apparently taken two days off. No wonder he gave us that ridiculously large homework packet.

During the first fifteen minutes of the class, we were quiet, acting as if we were working on our packets when in reality we had completed them the same day we received them.

Jasper had come over to my house, and each of us worked on different sections and then shared answers. The rest of class time, we spent talking and catching up.

On Friday, Jasper dragged me out of the library and insisted that I spend the lunch break with him and Alice in the cafeteria.

"Come on, J," I whined, "I don't want to… and besides, it's Friday, and I really don't want to aggravate your girlfriend."

"Don't worry about her, Bell. I already talked to her, and she promised to be on her best behavior," he said.

I glared at him.

"Plus," he added, "You might even see Edward."

I stopped right in my tracks. I technically just met Edward two days before. I hadn't even mentioned him to Jasper, so how did he know about him?

Apparently, there was something funny in my facial expression because Jasper doubled over in laughter.

"What are you laughing at, idiot?" I asked, annoyed.

"Your facial expression," he answered after he recovered from his fit.

"By the way, when were you planning on introducing me to this Edward character?" he asked, placing his arm over my shoulder as we continued our walk towards the cafeteria.

"It's not that serious, J. The guy's my Bio lab partner; I just met him two days ago," I explained.

"Besides, he's a nice kid. I'm just starting to get to know him," I shrugged nonchalantly.

"Mmhmm…"

I gave Jasper a side look. I could already tell by the frown on his face that he was judging Edward. I myself didn't really know him that well, let alone Jasper, but I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to start an argument with him.

We reached the cafeteria then, and I shrugged off Jasper's arm at the same time he spotted Alice waving at him from one of the tables. He made a beeline towards the table while I just stood there looking fairly awkward. I stood at the entrance for a good five minutes after that. It felt like such a foreign place for me to be. Ever since classes had started a month ago, I had only been in the cafeteria a total of two times. I really didn't like being in places full of people where the simplest thing would catch other people's attention, and then _bam_ you're the gossip topic of the week.

I walked towards the line and grabbed a tray. I wasn't really hungry, but I figured seeing as I was already there, I should probably eat something.

Nothing looked remotely appealing to eat, and I nearly gagged at the nasty soup–looking shit they called mashed potatoes. I suddenly had the urge to call Renee and ask her to bring me lunch just like when I was in elementary school.

I ended up just getting an apple and a bottle of water. I turned to see if I spotted Jasper at one of the tables, but because the cafeteria was twice as full now, it was hard to find him.

I saw Alice's spiky hair first, followed by… Rosalie.

"Shit!" I cursed.

I didn't want to face both of them alone – I wasn't exactly their favorite cup of tea – but then again I didn't want to let Jasper down either. I already felt bad because he got stuck in the middle of arguments between them and I and didn't know which side to choose. I needed to be a good friend to Jasper; I couldn't continue to put him in that situation anymore. Even if it killed me, I was going to make an effort.

With a deep breath and heavy footsteps, I walked towards them and stood in front of one of the chairs. I prayed they wouldn't make a scene and embarrass me in front of the whole junior class.

Rosalie was animatedly chatting with Alice about a recent shop that opened up in Port Angeles and wanted Alice to visit one day. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't notice when I reached the table until I cleared my throat.

"Umm… do you mind if I sit here?" I asked.

They looked at each other for a second before Alice waved absently, muttering a simple 'whatever' and returned to her conversation with Rosalie.

I sat down on the chair and decided to ignore their conversation. I rummaged through my bag until I found the current book I was reading, and I disappeared in the story. I didn't even notice when Jasper sat down in between Alice and I with a tray full of food.

"Glad you decided to stay," he said, smiling brightly.

I didn't even make a move to acknowledge that I'd listened to what he said. The current situation was awkward enough for me.

Throughout the hour, I heard little snippets of Rosalie and Alice's conversation. When they weren't discussing a new brand of makeup, they gossiped about the newest freshmen. It never got old for them.

At one point, from my periphery I saw Rosalie pointing at me. I tried to tune her out as much as possible. I didn't want to listen in on what she had to say about me at the time. I was sure none of it was good.

But she surprised me. She was actually trying to get my attention for some reason.

"Isabella?"

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked. I was sure confusion was written all over my face.

Rosalie exhaled in exasperation. "I asked if you wanted to come with Alice and me to Port Angeles tomorrow."

I glanced at Jasper. _Is she serious? _I thought.

Jasper just shrugged. Apparently, he had nothing to do with the fact that Rosalie was being – or acting – nice to me for once.

Before I made a decision, I had to check with Renee to see if she didn't have anything planned already for the weekend. Part of me hoped she did so I could have an excuse to decline Rosalie's invite, while another part of me hoped that my weekend was free. I really wanted to make an effort to get along with Rosalie and Alice, even if it was for Jasper's sake. I really valued our friendship, and I feared that it would somehow suffer because of those two.

"Umm... I'll have to check with my mom first," I said. "Can I let you know after school?" I suggested.

"Yeah, sure," she answered, twirling a strand of blonde hair between her fingers.

After my interaction with Rosalie, the lunch hour dragged. It felt like it was never going to end, and I could feel the tension growing each second. As soon as the bell rang, I was the first one out of my seat and on my way to my next class.

When I got to Biology, the classroom was still empty. For this, I was grateful. I needed those few minutes to gather myself. What the hell had just happened? Was I dreaming things? Was Rosalie actually being nice to me of her own free will? I refused to believe it at first, but I had no proof to know if her intentions had been malicious or not.

Students started to fill the classroom. The first one that entered, I recognized by her obnoxious voice that you could hear from a mile away. Lauren. She was followed in by part of her posse who also shared this class. Then Edward walked in, seemingly keeping his distance from the others.

I felt a smile spread across my face as I watched him walk towards me. In the past two days that I'd known Edward, I felt utterly comfortable talking to him. We talked for awhile the day before on the phone, and I got to know him a little better. He gave off a positive vibe. I felt like I'd known him for a long time and could tell him anything.

"Hey, Bella!" he greeted me as he took his seat next to me. A sweet smile was on his face. I managed to look at his face long enough to notice that this smile was a bit crooked, but that's what made it all the more attractive in my opinion.

"Hey, Edward," I answered.

"You look kind of tense, are you okay?" he asked, his voice sounding concerned.

I hadn't been aware of just how much Rosalie's invitation had affected me. I decided just to play oblivious with him.

"I do?" I asked. "I-I-feel perfectly fine."

He furrowed his brows in response. I could tell by his facial expression that he wasn't convinced with what I told him, but fuck it; I was done with that topic.

Mr. Banner came in the room a few seconds later and started his lesson. I had read the material the night before, so I was up to speed with the topic he had chosen, but I definitely _wasn't _expecting the assignment that followed.

"Okay class, for this weekend's assignment, I would like for all you to work with your partners. This assignment is due on Wednesday, but I would advise you to start early."

He started giving us our assignments, and when I heard mine, I noticed he had given us the same exact assignment as Brittney and Samantha. I would have to avoid those two at all costs if I didn't want them stuck in my arm like leeches, waiting to suck the answers out of me.

The assignment was pretty simple. All Edward and I had to do was draw the different types of cells and differentiate between them.

I saw Edward's head turned towards where they were sitting, and he groaned in annoyance as well.

"Well, the good thing about this is that we won't see those two –" he whispered, inconspicuously pointing at them "–over the weekend, so they won't be bugging us for answers."

"Thank God for that miracle!" I exclaimed.

The rest of the hour passed in a blur. I felt my self-esteem rising a few levels just because every time Mr. Banner called on me, I answered his questions correctly.

After we left class, I almost skipped my way to the locker room. At that moment, I felt like I could do anything. It was a very amazing feeling while it lasted – only five minutes.

-x-x-

Back home things were normal. Well, as normal as they can be in the Swan household. After I got home from school, I greeted my mom as always and then rushed to my room to start on the Biology assignment. I had already discussed with Edward which part of the assignment corresponded to each of us. The only thing we didn't talk about was when we were meeting to put everything together. I didn't want it to be today because I knew I had to warm up my parents to the idea first, and I needed some time to get my thoughts together about everything that happened today at school.

I booted up my laptop and began researching my part of the project. I was halfway done when I heard a knock on my door.

Renée was peeking in. "Can I come in?" she asked. Her voice sounded thick, like she had just woken up from a nap.

"Of course, Mom. Did you want something?"

She looked wary, as if she was thinking very carefully of what to say to me. She walked in my room and sat at the corner of my bed, smoothing over the imaginary wrinkles in the comforter.

"Yeah… Umm… would you like to help me make dinner tonight?" she asked.

I blinked in surprise. Wow, that was a first. Renée almost never asked me to do anything with her. Most of the time I just volunteered silently, or she would just order me to do something.

"When – I mean – uhh… Sure!" I stammered. She really surprised me with that.

"I'm not interrupting you, am I?" she motioned towards the computer screen.

I waved dismissively towards it, "Oh… No. I mean, I was just finishing up. I can print it out later," I assured her.

"Great! Can we start now?" Now she just looked happy. She smiled widely at me and got up from my bed.

"Yeah, I'll be there in a sec."

I saved my session on the computer and changed my clothes. I put my phone in my pajama pocket. I planned to talk to Renée about Rosalie's invite and see if she would let me go. Also, I was going to use that time and tell her about the school assignment and ask if she would allow Edward to come over so we could work on it.

On my way downstairs, I could already hear Renée going around the kitchen looking for pots and the ingredients we were going to use for tonight's dinner.

"So… what are we making, Mom?" I was truly excited at the prospect of doing something with my mom; we rarely did things like that anymore and honestly, I missed it.

"Well, I was reading a magazine the other day and saw this recipe. I thought it looked pretty good, so I wanted to try it," she explained.

She walked past me into the living room and came back with a magazine in hand.

I took the magazine from her hand and looked through it. The recipe she wanted us to try was buffalo chicken mac and cheese. It looked pretty simple to make, and I was sure that the time we spent making it was going to bring us closer – even if just for a little while.

"This looks delicious, Mom. I think we should try it," I told her.

"I knew you would like it, here," she handed me the cutting board along with onions and a few stalks of celery.

"Dice that while I prepare the other stuff," she instructed.

While I was cutting the onions and celery, she put the pasta in the pot to cook and started mixing the different sauces that we were going to use. After I finished cutting the vegetables, I put them in a skillet and sautéed them. Renée then added the chicken and the sauce mixture she had prepared. Pretty soon, the kitchen started to smell mouth watering from all the different foods and spices.

As she drained the pasta, I took the job of getting a baking dish and coating it with butter. Renée and I worked together, adding the chicken mixture and the pasta in the dish. I took that time as my cue to tell her about my plans.

"Hey, Mom? You remember Rosalie Hale?" I had to approach the subject that way. She knew how close mine and Jasper's friendship was. In fact, she was the first one who started telling us that we we re attached at the hip, but with Rosalie it was another story. She knew we didn't exactly get along, but I didn't know if she remembered her or not.

"Hmm… Jasper's sister, right? What about her?" she asked.

"Right, well she invited me to go to the mall with her tomorrow."

Renée looked up in surprise, "That's great, honey!" she exclaimed, "Are you guys getting along better now?"

I guess I hadn't answered quickly enough because Renée stopped what she was doing and looked at me, her faced masked in concern.

"I don't know… she just asked me if I wanted to go during lunch. I'm not sure what her real intentions are," By tthe end of my sentence, I, was looking at a specific spot on the floor.

At that moment, I remembered an argument between her and Charlie from the beginning of the week about her wanting to do something together as a family. I didn't want to ruin that.

"Wait, Mom, if you already had something for us to do tomorrow, I can always cancel –"

"Don't worry about it," she interrupted.

"Are you sure?" I asked carefully.

"One hundred percent. Besides, I think your father already had plans of his own for this weekend." She shrugged.

I smiled and gave her a hug. "Thanks, Mom."

"Anytime, sweetie."

We finished making dinner in a comfortable silence. Renée occasionally looked over to me with what I can only describe as a look meant to be shared between mother and daughter.

She astonished me most of the time. The way Renée acted sometimes, one would think that she didn't really do anything with her family. Then she would do these weird 180-degree changes that you honestly can't help but wonder if she was the same person. That was just one of the many things I loved about my mom.

After we finished dinner, I joined her in the living room while she watched another cooking show. I hadn't told her anything yet about Edward coming over, so I decided better now than later.

"Are you going to be home on Sunday?" I asked her.

"I don't know yet, most likely. Why?"

"I have an assignment to do, so I wanted to know if my partner could come over so we could work on it."

Her brow raised in suspicion, "What partner?"

"My biology lab partner. His name is Edward Cullen."

"_His _name? And since when do you have a lab partner?" she questioned.

"Since Wednesday, but you and Dad were so busy arguing that you didn't even stop to notice what your daughter had to say," I stated, my voice void of any emotion.

And these were the things that I hated the most about my parents. They never listened to anything I had to say, , and then they claimed I never said anything. I was beyond tired of arguing with them about it, so for the sake of this conversation I tried to downplay my emotions as much as possible in order not to cause an altercation with Renée.

"No you didn't."

My shoulders slumped in defeat. I was done.

"You know what, Mom? Yes, I _did _tell you and honestly, I don't want to argue with you. I'm just letting you know what my plans are for the weekend in case you want to stick around. I don't want you to catch me at home alone with a boy and then use whatever excuse to yell at me."

I hastily got up from my spot on the floor and started walking towards the staircase. As I passed Renée on the couch, she roughly grabbed my arm. I winced at how hard she was gripping my arm.

"Don't you _ever _speak to me like that again, Isabella," she hissed. "I'm still your mother. You owe me at least a bit of respect."

I glared at her. Her blue eyes looked like pure ice, and, I flinched again at the pain that was shooting up my arm.

"Let. Go." My voice was no louder than a whisper. My vision was already clouding with tears building up. She let go of my arm, and I rushed up the stairs.

"This isn't over, Isabella. We'll talk later!" She called after me.

"Like hell we will," I mumbled to no one in particular.

-x-x-

A few hours later, Charlie got home and we all ate dinner. The tension around the table was so thick you could see it. Charlie asked me the same trivial questions he did everyday about school and the Friday bonus 'what are your plans this weekend?' question. I answered his questions while looking at Renée. She didn't even lift her gaze off her plate to look at me. After dinner was over, I cleaned up the dishes and went to Renée.

"Dinner was delicious, Mom. I had fun making it with you," I admitted truthfully.

She looked at me for a long minute before nodding and smiling slightly.

Back in the comfort of my room, I texted both Jasper and Edward. I told Jasper to let Rosalie know that I was going to Port Angeles with her. In return, he told me that he was glad I was going because he was the one driving us there, and that he hoped I had some positive bonding time with Rosalie and Alice.

Edward didn't text me back. He actually called me. We decided that an early start was the best thing so we were to meet at my house at noon. I gave him the directions to get to my house and then we talked for about an hour after that.

"Your house isn't that far from mine. It's like a 4 minute drive," he pointed out.

I was nodding my head for a minute before realizing that he wasn't going to be able to see me doing that. I burst out laughing in response.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Sorry, um… while you were talking to me, I was nodding my head and then realized that you weren't sitting in front of me to actually see me doing that."

"Wow, Bella," he laughed.

He had such a contagious laugh. I wanted to hear it again, b ut it was getting late.

"It's getting kind of late, Edward, and I have an early start tomorrow…"

"Y-yeah, sure. I'll talk to you later, Bella," he s said.

"Goodnight, Edward."

"Goodnight, Bella."

I waited on the line to see if he was going to hang up first, But after a few seconds, I hadn't heard the click of the phone line.

"Edward?"

"Yeah?" he answered.

I chuckled. "Weren't you going to hang up?" I asked.

"I was umm… sorta waiting for you to hang up first," he admitted and laughed nervously.

"So, you're being the perfect gentleman, huh?"

"I… guess…" We both laughed at the whole silliness of the situation.

After our fit of laughter ended, my body started giving signals that it wanted to go to sleep, and I yawned.

"Well, now that we got that little problem sorted out…"

"You sound tired, Bella. Go to sleep."

"'Kay, Goodnight, Edward."

"Goodnight, Bella. Don't forget to hang up this time."

I stuck my tongue out in a very childish manner before hanging up. I hurried through my bathroom routine and got under the covers of my warm bed.

-x-x-

I sat outside Jasper's house on the hood of his car with him and waited for Rosalie and Alice to come out. It wasn't raining yet today in Forks, but it was cloudy and relatively warm despite the fact that it was almost November. I was supposed to meet them at 1:00 so we could beat the midday traffic, and it was now 2 o' clock and they still weren't ready.

"At this rate, we're going to get to Port Angeles after all the stores close," Jasper complained.

"Why don't you just go get them, J?" I asked.

"Oh hell to the fucking no!" I laughed at his expression.

"Bell, you don't understand. You _can't _rush Ali and Rose when they're getting ready," he said, pointing towards Rosalie's window.

"Yeah, I'm sure that would be the end of the world, wouldn't it?" I said sarcastically.

"Well, for them it _is_!" he countered.

At that same moment, Alice and Rosalie emerged from the house dressed up elegantly. I instantly looked at myself with my baggy jeans and dirty tennis shoes.

_Way to dampen someone's self-esteem, Rosalie, _I thought sourly.

"Can we please go? We're already late," whined Alice.

Jasper looked over at me with what could only be described as pure annoyance. He walked to the passenger side of his car silently. He knew better than to start an argument with Alice. Her temper was as short as her height.

Rosalie sat on the passenger side because she was telling Jasper which specific stores we were going to. I was stuck in the back seat with Alice.

The ride was relatively quiet, except for the music coming from the stereo. I spent most of the ride looking out the window at the trees passing by us. Halfway through the ride, Rosalie lowered the volume on the stereo and turned to face Alice and me.

"So, you know my Halloween party is next week, right? I already know what you're going as Ali, but you Isabella, what are you planning to wear?"

I turned my head, my eyes wide in surprise. "W-wh-what?" I stuttered.

"Well you don't expect me to let you in my party without a costume, do you?" she asked.

I was confused. I felt like a deer in the headlights under Rosalie's scrutinizing gaze. Since when had I been invited to her party? I looked over to Alice to see if I could catch any expression on her face that told me I was being punked or something, but she had the same confused look as I did. I also noticed Jasper glancing at me through the rearview m mirror. I was just about to answer Rosalie when Jasper interrupted me.

"Rose, don't you think you should've actually _invited _Bella to the party before asking her what she was going to wear?" he asked dryly.

Rosalie exhaled and rolled her eyes. "Okay, you're invited now… what are you going to wear?"

I had no idea. I'd never been to a Halloween party where I _had _to dress up. The last Halloween party I went to all I did was wear a baseball cap that I borrowed from Jasper and called it a day.

I shrugged, "I don't know," I mumbled.

"Don't worry, Alice and I will find you something," she stated. She turned back in her seat and cranked up the volume on the stereo once more. I casted a glance towards Alice and noticed she was giving me a tight-lipped s mile. I smiled back at her and returned my gaze to the window.

-x-x-

We entered a store called _The Greatest Costumes on Earth_. As soon as we passed the entrance, Alice and Rosalie went costume hunting. I was looking at some wigs and trying to find something decent that didn't scream I-wanna-look-like-a-slut-for-a-day.

I decided on an army costume. I was glad that they had different options, and I didn't have to stick with the one that had the booty shorts. They barely covered half the model's ass cheek. I picked the one with the camo leggings.

"Thank you, thank you very much," Jasper was wearing a very ridiculous looking Elvis wig.

I burst out in a fit of laughter. "Very fitting for you, J, I think you should keep it," I told him.

"Thanks, Bell. There is no way in hell I'm letting Ali pick out my costume this year."

"Yeah, good luck turning her down," I said. I motioned behind him with my eyes as a very excited Alice walked towards us carrying a pile of different costumes. Jasper turned and groaned at the sight of her carrying so many costumes.

"Rose wants to talk to you, she's on aisle three," she announced once she reached us. "And you mister, time to try on these costumes."

"Good luck," I mouthed to Jasper, clapping him on the shoulder while I walked away.

"I hate to break it to ya, darlin'" I heard him say before I was out of earshot.

I found Rosalie with a bag. I guess she had already paid for her costume.

"Did you find anything yet?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll be wearing this," I said showing her the picture in the front of the package.

"Cute. But, I think with the shorts it would have looked better."

I ignored the second part of her comment.

She turned to face me completely and looked me straight in the eye. Her ice blue eyes seemed to harden for a second before she blinked and her whole expression changed.

"Listen, there are some things I want to talk to you about, Isabella," she said.

"Okay, I'm listening." What was she up to? Her expression seemed sincere, but with Rosalie, you just never knew what to expect.

"No. I'm not doing this here," she said pointing to our surroundings, "How about when we get lunch we get a separate table and talk huh,"

I nodded.

"Great! Let's get out of here then."

-x-x-

We chose to eat at a fast food place. While we ordered, Alice went and secured a table for us. Once we got our food, Rosalie and I walked in a different direction than Alice and Jasper.

"Hey! The table's this way," Jasper called after us when he noticed we weren't following.

"We'll be back in a few, dear brother," Rosalie called back.

We walked towards a small table near the windows. From our view, we could see all the cars in the parking lot and the boardwalk to the far end. Rosalie and I sat across from each other. The tension between us was high again, and I could feel it. She took a sip of her juice without making eye contact with me. I decided to break the ice for her.

"So… what did you want to talk about?" I asked carefully.

She cleared her throat. "I know we don't particularly like each other, but…"

I nodded in agreement, "Because f you just can't seem to stomach the sight of me."

"That's not true."

"It's not?" I asked, "Because last time I checked, the last time you spoke to me – no scratch that – the last time you yelled at me, you accused me of stealing your brother from you."

She still refused to look at me. I realized my guard was rising, and I was attacking her while she was trying to tell me something.

"I'm sorry. I'm attacking you, what were you going to say?"

"Please don't interrupt me this time, okay?" her voice was small and insecure. I just nodded in response.

"I don't… hate you, Isabella. I think hate is a strong word. I don't even know a word that could express what I really think of you.

"Ever since Jasper and I met you, I was the first to notice how much you and Jazz clicked. I didn't like that. He talked and played with you more than with me, his own sister. That bothered me so much that I took it upon myself to try to break up your friendship, but that backfired on my ass. Now we barely even talk," she confessed.

"Where are you going with this, Rosalie? I don't understand."

"You said you weren't going to interrupt me, remember?" she laughed.

"Right, sorry. Go on."

"I really want to try to change, Isabella. I miss my brother. Ever since you moved back from Phoenix and started to show my ugly side, he hasn't been the same with me. I think that the first step for me is to apologize to you. I've already talked to Jasper about this and asked him for forgiveness. I think he has a pretty good idea that I'm having the same talk with you as I did with him a couple of days ago.

"I know you're not a bad person. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I know we won't be the best of friends because there are honestly things that I don't like about you and I will never like, for example your clothing style."

We both laughed at this. My mind was reeling at hearing all of this coming from Rosalie. I was amazed at how much Rosalie had grown and for her to be able tell me all of that, I knew it took a lot on her part.

"What do you say, can we try to be friends?" she asked hopeful.

"I don't see why not," I replied, "but, you have _got _to stop calling me Isabella," I said.

She shrugged, "only if you call me Rose," she said, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

"Deal!" we both blurted out at the same time.

* * *

Thanks to **Amy (Nolebucgrl)** for pre-reading this chapter and the betas from **PTB** for their editing help! :D

Feedback is always appreciated :)


	6. Secrets and Something Else

A/N: Hi everybody! Soooory for the long wait with this chapter. Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing, and all those who've put this story on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Major thanks to my pre-reader Amy (Nolebucgrl) and to my betas Ginginlee and VoluptuousVamp. Thank you guys for all you comments and your help =]

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

EPOV

Sunday definitely did not get here fast enough. It was ridiculous how time just seemed to move at a snail's pace whenever you just wanted it to fast forward.

After my talk with Bella on Friday night, I felt relieved. When I saw her in Biology she looked tense and worried. I tried asking her about it then, but she quickly ended the topic, letting me know she was fine – I didn't believe her one word of what she told me. I could tell from her tone of voice over the phone that she was feeling better though.

She had actually texted me, asking if I wanted to go over to her house so we could work on our Biology assignment. I decided to call her and give her my answer; one, because I wanted to make sure she was okay – even though I never mentioned that particular part of our earlier conversation – and two, I wanted to hear her voice. We talked about our day for a few minutes and decided to meet at her house at noon on Sunday. She gave me her address, and I was actually surprised at how close to my house she lived.

Talking to Bella was comfortable. Sometimes I even wondered if all my insecurities and worries regarding approaching her were in vain or if it was just me exaggerating.

It was getting late while we talked, but I honestly didn't want to hang up the phone. I could have easily stayed up all night talking to her but I guess she had other plans. After we said our goodbyes, I waited for her to hang up first, but after a few moments, I could still hear her calm breathing on the other side. She had the same thing in mind because she asked me if I was going to hang up first or not. We laughed at the ridiculousness of the whole situation and then finally ended the call.

After that, I finished my normal evening routine and then got ready for bed. I was smiling so wide, you would have thought I was a madman.

-x-x-x-

Saturday morning found me in a really good mood. Even though it was overcast, the temperature was pretty nice considering the time of year.

I had breakfast with my parents and decided to go for a jog. I used to jog all the time when we lived back in Chicago, but after we moved here, I just lost interest. I think it had to do with the fact that I was still homesick.

I had had gone about a mile and a half when I saw Ben Cheney running on the opposite side of the street.

"Hey, Ben!" I called out.

He looked up and waved before making his way across the street.

"'Sup, Cullen," he greeted, tapping my shoulder.

"You run around here constantly?" I asked.

"Yeah, when it's not too cold out. Helps me keep in shape, ya know?"

Ben wasn't a really muscular guy. He was about two inches shorter than me and he was pretty lanky looking.

"So, where you heading to?" I asked.

"I was actually on my way back already, but I'll join you. It doesn't hurt to go a few extra miles," he said chuckling.

"Cool, thanks. I'm actually just going to do 2 miles. Haven't done this in a while and I gotta get back on track."

We started jogging in the direction that I had originally started. We ran in a comfortable silence for about five minutes before Ben broke it.

"Did you see who I got paired with in Bio?" he asked.

I honestly never paid attention to who was in Biology class with me apart from Bella, those other two girls who received the same assignment we did, and a few others.

"Uhh no, I didn't notice. Did you get paired up with Newton?"

He scoffed. "Shit, I wish! Working with anybody would've been better than working with Jessica."

"Damn! Banner should've just left you to work by yourself. I feel bad for you, man," I said in all honesty.

Working with someone who didn't do anything was a pain in the ass.

"Did you get a decent working partner?" he asked.

How should I answer that? Bella wasn't just a _decent working partner_, she was just something else. Or maybe I was making a biased assumption because I liked her so much.

"Yeah, I'm working with Bella Swan."

"Well, aren't you a lucky motherfucker?" he asked to himself.

I smiled at how true that statement was. "I sure am," I admitted.

"Just so you know, Bella's a really chill girl. I mean, I don't really talk to her or anything but the times I have, she seemed cool."

"Yeah, she's nice," I replied.

We jogged back in silence. Ben was a pretty quiet guy, but he definitely spoke his mind whenever necessary. He was usually the quietest one in our group in the cafeteria. He normally focused silently on whatever the hell Newton and Crowley babbled about or he was eyeing Angela. I wondered why he hadn't made a move on her yet. Maybe he was just a wimp – just like I was when it came to Bella.

"This is my stop here," I said, stopping in front of my mailbox and trying to catch my breath.

"Nice house. I parked a couple of blocks down," he said.

I looked at him in confusion. "You live far from here?"

"Kinda. I like running around here though. Less traffic and there's better scenery."

He had a point there. This side of Forks had some nice looking neighborhoods, and you could easily get lost just looking around in the trails and stuff.

"I gotta go. See you in school," Ben said, jogging off.

"Later, man."

-x-x-

Back in my room, I peeled off my sweaty clothes and got in the shower. It felt so good to work out again. I could feel most of the tension roll off of my body just as the warm water fell on my skin.

I let my mind run in the shower and before I knew it, the water was coming down cold.

I put on some clean clothes before going down to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. When I reached the bottom floor, though, I heard the hushed whispers of my parents coming from the living room.

Trying to be sly, I tiptoed to the wall that divided the hall and the living room and tried to listen in on their conversation. I heard papers rustling and frustrated sighs coming from my father. What were they talking about that they felt the need to whisper? Was it something concerning me?

I didn't have time to organize my thoughts when I heard mom sniffling.

"I'm back!" I called out, walking into the living room to find my parents looking startled and my mom trying to inconspicuously wipe tears from her face.

"Edward! I thought you were going to be out longer?" Esme said, her statement sounded as a question.

"We didn't hear you come in," my dad said looking down at his wrist watch.

I ran my hands through my damp hair and kept my eyes on my mother's caramel ones as I tried to decipher her facial expression.

"Yeah... I uh, walked in through the back door," I replied.

"Well, I'm going to go ahead and make something for lunch. You want anything specific?" Esme asked while getting up from her spot on the couch.

Instead of answering her question, I ignored it altogether and asked one back.

"Mom, why do you have that worried look on your face? What happened?" I asked.

They both just stood there and didn't answer my question. My eyes were moving back and forth from my mom's worried ones to my dad's figure on the couch as he quickly arranged the papers that were on the table a second ago.

Esme looked down at the floor and walked past me towards the kitchen silently. Carlisle didn't even turn to meet my gaze as he wordlessly walked towards his office.

_What the hell is going on with my parents? _I thought.

I followed my mom back into the kitchen where she was busying herself cutting some lettuce.

"I'm just going to make a chicken salad for lunch, okay?" she stated, her voice void of all emotion. She didn't even turn to look at me.

"Whatever," I said, shaking my head. "Can you explain to me what the hell is going on?"

Ever since the other day when dad didn't go to work, I started noticing how strange my parents were acting. They were constantly avoiding any sort of deep conversations around me. It was as if they were walking on eggshells.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, turning around to face me.

Her poker face was on, but I knew better. Whatever the hell it was that was bothering her must be pretty severe. Even she couldn't hide that behind her mask. Her eyes were very expressive.

"That's bullshit and you know it!" I was getting upset.

"Watch your language!" she scolded.

"I just want you to tell me the reason why you were so upset back there," I said, pointing at the living room.

"That doesn't concern you, Edward." She turned back to what she was doing previously.

I took a deep breath. I really didn't want to lose my temper, especially not with my mother of all people. I knew that was going to bite me in the ass later on if I did that.

"Mom, I –"

"Edward! I'm not discussing this with you," she said with finality.

"I'll just go ask Dad then," I mumbled, too low for her to hear.

-x-x-x-

Going to my dad was a fucking waste of time. As soon as I opened the door to his office, he dismissed me saying that if Mom refused to tell me then he wasn't going to tell me either. I wanted to argue but I knew it wasn't going to help me. Once Carlisle and Esme agreed on something, it was usually tricky to try to get them to waver from their decisions. Sometimes, that benefited me and other times – like this one – it just didn't.

I went back to my room feeling annoyed as hell. I didn't even want to sit at the table with them during lunch and dinner if they were going to act that way towards me. I knew what happened had to be something serious because Esme didn't cry over little insignificant things.

I laid on my bed with my arms crossed behind my head for an immeasurable amount of time. At one point, Carlisle knocked on my door, letting me know that lunch was ready, but I wasn't really hungry and refused to go downstairs.

Moments later, I got up and turned on my laptop and started doing my part of the assignment Bella and I were supposed to complete. I printed out the research information that I found online and then busied myself making some drawings to put on our poster board. That reminded me that we actually didn't have a display board – that I knew of. Grabbing my phone from my bedside table, I texted Bella to find out.

_Hey, do we have a display board for the project? –E_

_Crap! I forgot to buy one. I'll probably get one tomorrow or on Monday. –B_

_Don't worry about it… I'll buy it and bring it over tomorrow. –E_

_Are you sure? I mean, you're not busy or anything? – B_

_Not at all… I need the distraction. –E _

_OK... If you're sure then. I'll see you tomorrow :) –B_

After my exchange with Bella, I got up from my bed and grabbed a change of clothes. I went downstairs and found Carlisle in the study reading some medical text.

"Where you off to?" he asked, taking off his glasses and placing them on the desk.

"Out. I have to buy something," I answered. I didn't feel like elaborating on that. Truth was, after the way he acted with me in the morning, he shouldn't even be expecting me to be civil with him.

"Hmm… Do you need money, or…" Carlisle trailed off.

"No, I'm good."

My fingers were tapping rapidly against the doorframe. I waited for him to say something – anything – but I got too impatient after a few seconds.

"You know what, I gotta go," I said tapping the doorframe one last time.

Dad put on his glasses again and looked down at the text he was previously reading.

"Drive safe," I heard him say.

I went to the nearest craft store that was in Forks. I didn't feel like driving all the way up to Port Angeles just to buy cardboard.

I arrived at the store right when they were about to close and practically had to beg the lady to just let me buy that one item. Back in Chicago, some of my female friends used to tell me that I had _really intense eyes._ I never really understood how I managed to accomplish that, but it worked in certain situations.

I quickly paid for the display board and drove toward home, driving slower than usual because I really didn't want to go there. I never thought I would say something like that, but my parents really fucking aggravated me. I mean, what the fuck was so hard about telling me what was going on? Didn't they think I deserved to know if the world was coming to an end or some shit like that? Guess not.

x-x-x-

Sunday finally came around. I had about an hour to get ready to go to Bella's house, and I was overexcited. Normally on Sundays I wouldn't be up so early, but today I was up at fucking eight in the morning. Talk about impatience.

Truth was, I was extremely nervous. I'd never actually hung out with Bella – unless you counted the light conversations we've had during classes. I didn't know what her sense of humor was, if she enjoyed stupid jokes or things like that. I didn't stress it, I figured I would learn more about her as time passed.

Brunch with my parents was a relatively quiet event. After our shared ''good mornings'' and ''how did you sleep?'' we all seemed to concentrate on specific things. I, for one, concentrated on the food before me, Carlisle was busy with the newspaper and Esme had all her attention fixed on some home decorating magazine.

None of us made the effort to initiate any kind of conversation or small talk. That was by far one of the longest forty five minutes of my life.

I broke the silence by telling them that I was going to spend the majority of my afternoon at Bella's house to work on our biology project. Esme's eyes lit up at the mention of Bella and Carlisle just muttered a simple okay.

I got up, picking up my dirty plate and cup, and placed them in the sink.

"Don't be late for dinner," Carlisle called out as I walked out of the dining room.

I got into my car and slowly backed out of the driveway until I was clear. The short drive to Bella's house somehow felt excruciatingly long to me. Even though I drove slowly, I was still early by fifteen minutes so I stayed in my car for a while listening to the songs that were currently playing on the stereo.

Three minutes before noon, I grabbed all my things and made my way towards the front door of Bella's house. I had to speed walk because it had started to rain and I didn't want the work that I had already put on the display board to get damaged.

I knocked two times before I heard a voice – which I assumed it was Bella's – yell out that she'd answer the door. When she opened it, my instinctive reaction was to smile.

"Hey, Edward," she greeted me.

She was wearing a long sleeve dark green v-neck sweater that emphasized her pale complexion and dark jeans. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail that just made her look adorable.

"Hey, Bella," I answered.

She opened the door a little more and motioned for me to come in. I stood just inside the doorway and waited for her to lead me to where we were going to be working on our assignment.

"I have all my things set up in here," she said while pointing towards where I assumed was the living room.

"I figured there's more space there and we could work on the floor since we have the poster board and such."

"Yeah, that's fine," I shrugged.

"Nice socks," I commented looking down at her feet. She was wearing mismatched socks and one of them actually had little flowers and the saying _where is spring?_ scattered around.

Her face turned a subtle shade of red and she looked down at her feet, wiggling her toes.

"Thanks, my socks are divorced today," she said, chuckling.

We both walked toward her living room and as we entered, I saw someone sitting on the couch reading a magazine similar to those that Esme was always reading.

"Mom, this is Edward, the Bio partner I told you about. Edward, this is my mother, Renée," Bella said, introducing me to her mom.

Renée looked up from her magazine and smiled slightly at me. I stretched my hand out to shake with hers.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Swan," I said

"Nice meeting you too, Edward," she answered returning my handshake.

"If you don't mind, we're going to be working back here," Bella said to her mother. "Please no interruptions,"

"Don't worry, you won't even know I'm here," Renée said, smiling at both of us. I could see the resemblance between her and Bella. They had the same smile and slightly similar hair color, except Bella's hair was a tad darker.

Bella had a little station prepared already in which we were going to work in and she explained to me all the information she had found for the assignment and how she planned to arrange it for the presentation.

I gave her my own ideas as well and I agreed to let her finish the written part of the assignment given that she was better at that and I focused on the board and the oral presentation details.

"Bella?" I said

"Hmm?"

"I was um… I was thinking that it would be better for us to put the pictures here instead of where you told me before. I think it would be less of a distraction visually and it takes less space." I showed her on the board the place where I was referring to.

She turned her head to the side and contemplated for a second before agreeing. I added the finishing touches to our display board and then started working on coming up with ideas of how I was going to make the oral presentation more interesting. I was on my second paragraph when Bella called out to me.

"Edward, check out what I have so far, and let me know if I need to add anything else," she said while passing me her laptop.

"Yeah, sure. This is what I was planning on saying for the oral presentation, if you want to add something to it, feel free," I said while passing her my notebook.

"Holy crap! Your handwriting is amazing!" she said, while inspecting each and every letter that was written on the paper.

"Thanks."

"I think I'm just going to add my comments on another sheet of paper, your script intimidates me," Bella said.

"You don't have to. Besides, I'm gonna type that up later."

_I also want to see your handwriting, _I added internally.

"Are you sure?" she quirked an eyebrow as she said this.

"Positive."

I read through her report and fixed the very minimal grammatical errors I found and also added a few sentences that I felt were necessary for the report to look completed. I peeked up at her for a second and saw her scribbling on my paper with a very concentrated look on her face. I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped me then.

"What?" Bella asked.

"Nothing," I answered. I hoped she didn't want me to elaborate on that.

"Nothing? Then what were you chuckling about?" she asked again.

"It's nothing, I'm serious," I said innocently.

She narrowed her eyes at me and held my gaze. Her big coffee–colored eyes seemed to draw me in and all of a sudden I felt intimidated and looked away.

"C'mon, Edward, tell me. I promise I won't beat you up," she declared.

I laughed at her comment and gave in. "Fine! I was laughing because your face when you're concentrated on something is hilarious."

"Oh really? What's so –" she started to say but got cut off by her cell phone ringing.

She took her phone out of her jean pocket and answered without checking the caller ID.

"Jay! What's up?" I heard her say.

She was talking with her best friend, Jasper.

I looked back toward her laptop and tried to concentrate on reading the words that were in front of me rather than hearing her voice. That proved fruitless when I suddenly heard my name fall from her lips.

"Yeah, I'm working on Banner's project with Edward," she answered him.

I looked up at her and noticed that she was looking at me with a thoughtful expression and biting her lip. When our eyes made contact, she quickly looked down at her lap, but I managed to catch her face reddened.

"Umm… Jay, is Rose around?" she asked while getting up from the spot we were working in and walking toward her kitchen.

"Nothing serious, I just need…" Her voice trailed off.

She had such a sweet voice. _God I sound gay._ But I couldn't help it; Bella just had that effect on me. I couldn't wait until I knew a little more about her and finally ask her out. I just hoped she wouldn't reject me or some shit like that.

A couple of minutes later, just as I was finishing reading her part of the report and adding a few sentences, Bella walked back in the room holding two bottles of water. She handed me one while taking a seat next to me and I took it gratefully.

"Here," I said passing her laptop. "I added a few things that I think would make the report more complete."

"That's ok; I added a few things to your paper as well. I just hope you can read my handwriting," she said, frowning.

"Don't worry."

We finished working on the poster board in silence. To her, it might have been a comfortable silence, but for me, it was most definitely not. My mind kept running a mile a minute on all the things I wanted to tell Bella but couldn't because I had no idea how she would react. While fixing the poster, I busied myself just looking at her face. Her eyes, her small nose, her cheeks – that seemed to be getting a deeper shade of red as time progressed – and the curve of her lips. Her many different facial expressions had me wondering what was going through her mind at the moment. I wanted to know everything about her.

After a few more minutes and two interruptions from Bella's mom, we were finally finished and ready to present our project on Tuesday. I glanced at the clock on the other side of the wall and noticed that almost four hours had passed.

"Phew! I'm glad we finished this," Bella stated while we were both admiring our work.

"Yeah, me too," I answered smiling slightly.

"Uhh… My friend is having a party on Friday…" she said.

I looked at her curiously. She was looking at her lap and her hands were nervously pulling at the sleeves of her shirt. Was she inviting me to a party? I hoped so.

"She said I can invite anyone I wanted… Would… would you like to go with me?" She sounded so nervous. I honestly had to resist the urge to laugh. Gosh, if she only knew.

_Of course I want to go with you! _My mind screamed. Bella looked at me expectantly and I realized that I hadn't answered her yet.

"S-sure, I'll go," I stammered. My mind was still processing the fact that Bella invited me somewhere.

"If you don't want to go, it's alright. You don't have –" she started but I cut her off telling her I was glad she invited me.

She didn't seem too convinced with my answer though. On pure impulse, I grabbed her hand and gave it slight squeeze. She gasped at the initial contact of our hands. I guess she too felt that little jolt of electricity. I was glad she didn't pull away, though.

She glanced at our hands, and I waited for her to make eye contact with me before speaking.

"Truly, I would love to go with you," I admitted.

Her brown eyes were wide and I felt like I could see inside her soul from how deep they were.

She smiled at me and whispered a small "Thanks."

"So tell me about this party," I inquired, trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, my best friend's sister is throwing it and… you _have _to wear a costume," she said the last part with a grimace.

We spent a few moments talking about the party and the rest of the project before it was time for me to go. Her mom asked me if I wanted to stay for dinner but I declined, telling her that I still had work to finish at home.

I packed up my things and Bella walked me to the door.

"You're a good lab partner. I look forward to working with you," Bella said while leaning on the open door.

I grinned at her. She didn't know just how much those simple words would affect me from now on.

I nodded. "Ditto."

"I'll see you tomorrow then," I said and started walking towards my car.

"See ya!" I heard Bella call out.

As I approached my car, I glanced back and noticed that Bella was still standing at her doorway and waved at me when she noticed I was looking at her. She didn't go back inside until I was completely out of her driveway.

-x-x-x-

Back at home, things were slow and quiet. Dinner was a wordless event, and I escaped to my room right after, not wanting to dampen my good mood.

I lounged around in my room and played my guitar. That proved to be completely boring after a while, so I went down and played some video game Tyler loaned me.

All throughout the evening, my parents seemed to steer clear of me. I was glad for that; I didn't want another altercation with them. I was probably going to end up losing anyways.

I was halfway through the third round of the game when Esme came in from the kitchen while turning off the lights in her path.

"You have school tomorrow, Edward," she said passively.

That was her universal code for telling me to go to bed. Any other day I would've argued. But just seeing the look on her face of pure seriousness and me being in a chill mood, I just did as I was told.

After all the lights and the TV were off, I walked up to her and kissed her cheek.

"'Night, Mom," I whispered.

"Goodnight, Edward," she murmured.

She gave me what was supposed to be a reassuring smile and then went up the stairs towards her bedroom.

Despite everything that happened during the weekend, I managed to sleep peacefully that night; the best part was that my dreams were full of Bella.

* * *

Let me know what you think! just click that little blue button :)

**Recs:**

**My Ride Home **by **_ocdmess: _**Girl feels betrayed by the world and the people in it. Boy is just sick and tired of following orders. Everybody has secrets. Everybody needs a ride home. All Human, Rated M for language, dark themes & violence. (This one is a work in progress)

**Bare **by **_stella luna sky: _**A beautifully plain girl writes the colors used to unravel a young prodigy of the brushstroke. What color are the eyes that see through the heart? Forest green and their rooted brown. (This one is completed)


	7. Parties and Requests

A/N: It's been a while. Hi everybody! Major thanks to everyone sticking with the story and all those who've put it on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Many thanks to my pre-reader Amy (Nolebucgrl) and to my betas Ginginlee and VoluptuousVamp. Thank you guys for all you comments and your help!

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

BPOV

The following week passed in a blur. I was headache free for most of the week – which I was immensely grateful for – and I didn't have to worry about exams or anything of that nature.

I had a nice time working with Edward on Sunday. I never questioned him about it, but I could tell he looked kind of edgy that day. I just assumed it had to do with the fact that my dad was a cop – even though he wasn't home. During the time Edward and I were working on the project, Jay called me to see if I wanted to hang out for a while, but I couldn't. Instead, a little light bulb went off in my head and I decided to ask Edward to come to Rosalie's party.

After I'd told Rosalie about it, I asked Edward if he wanted to come. For some reason, I thought he would have said no and I felt kind of timid about asking him, but he surprised me by telling me that he indeed was going to attend. I told him that he didn't need to feel obligated to go but he cut me off, letting me know that he was glad I invited him. And that's when it happened.

He grabbed my hand and it felt weird. It was cold and it felt sweaty at the same time. It also felt like he was trembling a little, and I felt the vibrations run up the palm of my hand. I gasped quietly at the strange sensation but refused to let go of his hand. For some reason, I felt as if I could trust him – just from that simple touch. It was something that I'd never felt before and in all honesty, it scared me. When I looked up at his face, I noticed him staring at me. His eyes were so focused on mine, and I couldn't help but stare back into his forest-green ones. In the bright light of my living room, I could make out tiny, faint flecks of amber surrounding the mysterious dark green. They were alluring. It was kind of hard to look away from them.

After agreeing, Edward and I talked for a while about the party until it was time for him to go. I had to admit; I did not want him to leave so soon, so I inwardly smiled when Renée asked him to stay for dinner. However, my thrill was short lived when Edward declined her invitation.

Needless to say, the rest of my night was filled with overwhelming thoughts of the strange feelings coursing through me, and of course, Edward Cullen.

Edward and I reviewed and rehearsed our presentation on Monday, and by the time Tuesday rolled around, we were ready to present.

Our presentation went well. All we had to do was to point at the different elements we had placed on the board and then give a full in-depth explanation of it. I was terrified at the fact that Mr. Banner chose us to go second, but at the same time, I was happy to get it over with. At the end of class, Mr. Banner let us know that the people who hadn't presented yet would go on Wednesday and then proceeded to tell us our grades separately. He let Edward and I know that he didn't give us a perfect score because of the fact that my voice was too low and at one point during the presentation, I even forgot part of what I had to say. Edward told me not to worry too much, seeing as we only lost four points, but it still bothered me that I couldn't even be articulate enough during a two minute presentation.

Thursday came, and I found myself sitting in the jam-packed cafeteria with Alice, Jasper and Rose. My relationship with Rosalie was seeing improvement. She now greeted me whenever she saw me in the hallway – rather than giving me her infamous bitch stare – and when we spoke, we spoke civilly towards each other. We were by no means best buddies, but at least she didn't act like I was a complete stranger either. It was as if we were, dare I say it, friends. She was chatting animatedly with Alice about all the preparations for her Halloween party while Jasper made subtle gagging expressions in their direction. I was idly playing with the bowl full of uneaten pasta that sat in front of me when Rose suddenly directed her attention to me.

"I see someone's got an admirer," she sang with a smirk on her face.

I creased my eyebrows in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

Instead of answering me, she turned her gaze again and focused on a space behind my head. I turned slowly, trying to be crafty in my movement, and sure enough, there was Edward, raising a bottle of water to his lips while his eyes focused on me. I turned around fast and ducked my head. I could already feel my face getting hot, and I probably resembled a tomato.

"Oooo and she's blushing too!" Rose continued.

"Oh my God, Rose!" I muttered, feeling embarrassed.

I turned back around and Edward waved slightly at me, letting me know that he knew I saw him. I waved back and didn't turn in his direction again. Looking to where Jasper was, I noticed that he was looking fiercely in Edward's direction. Rose seemed to notice the same thing and claimed Jasper's attention by snapping her fingers in front of his face.

"What crawled up your ass, little bro?" she asked.

"I don't like him," he said stiffly.

Rosalie scoffed. "Why?"

"You don't even know him," I said, looking straight at him.

"He sits with Crowley and Newton. He's an asshole by association. "

"Haven't you ever heard to not judge a book by its cover?" I asked.

That shit was getting me irritated. Jay didn't even know the guy, hell he'd never even spoken to him, and he was just making assumptions based on the kind of people Edward supposedly "hung out" with.

"Why –" I started to say, but Alice's voice cut me off.

"Why are _you _so quick to defend him?" she asked with obvious attitude.

"Why do _you_ care? Who the hell even called you into this conversation?" I snapped at her.

I could faintly hear Rose's voice telling us to calm down as Alice and I were engaged in a defiant stare. She raised a perfectly waxed eyebrow at me, trying to challenge me, but I refused to back down. She really had no right to give her opinion. Who the fuck cared if I was defending him or not? It just wasn't fair that they were judging him so harshly without even getting to know him first.

"Guys, c'mon, it's not that big of a deal…" Rosalie said, trying to lessen the dense tension that had set over our table.

Jasper let out a sigh. "Bella…"

I couldn't believe this. He was mad at me; he _never _called me "Bella" unless that was the case.

"Just… shh!" I said, shaking my head and holding my hand out.

I quickly got up from the table, making extra noise just for the hell of it, and forcefully grabbed my tray. I left swiftly after muttering a quick, "See you later, Rose," and spent the remainder of the lunch hour fuming in the library.

Part of my rational self came back to me while I was there, and I wondered why I was being so protective of Edward. I mean, even I didn't know him that well. But I didn't know why, but for some reason something welled up inside me – it was like I _needed _to defend him, rather than me just _wanting _to do it. I couldn't reason with that feeling. I related it to the sense of security I felt on Sunday when he touched my hand. I had already convinced myself that I would never feel that again. Maybe the same thing would happen with the incident in the cafeteria.

-x-x-x-

It was Friday, and I was getting ready for Rosalie's party. As I brushed my hair into a ponytail, I mulled over what to say to people in general. For a second I had forgotten exactly just how many people Rose knew that were going to be in attendance at the party. Just thinking about it made me feel claustrophobic. I thought about just hiding in one of their rooms when the party got too rowdy but quickly decided against that. I didn't even know if Jasper was still angry at me. I hadn't seen him in school all day, and he was absent during the only class we shared together.

Then there was Edward. I had invited him to the party, and I couldn't leave him alone to fend for himself. Plus, he seemed really chipper in Biology today, but I really wasn't in the mood to talk, and he didn't question me – for that I was thankful. I didn't know what would happen once we reached Rose's party. I didn't know if she had told Jasper about the fact that I had invited Edward or not. Whichever the case was, I was ready to confront it.

I finished getting ready, putting on my vest and cap that completed the costume and grabbed my cell phone and keys. When I got to the living room, I noticed that Charlie and Renée were there together, which was a rare occurrence.

"I'm off to Jasper's house," I said, as I grabbed a sweater. "What time should I be back?"

"Midnight," Renée said.

"Eleven," Charlie said at the same time.

I quirked an eyebrow at them and just waited for them to make up their minds. They looked at each other for a second before Charlie turned to me with a stern expression.

"Eleven thirty. Not a second after. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"Have fun and be careful!" I heard Renée say as I closed the front door.

I wondered why Charlie wasn't still at the station. It was still too early for him to be home. The most rational thing that came up to my head was that he was probably on duty monitoring Rose's party in case things got out of control.

The night was unpleasantly cold and the wind had seemed to pick up since the morning. At least it wasn't raining.

I quickly walked the fairly short walk to Jasper's house. The outside was very spookily decorated, with faux spider webs, dreary lights and somber looking jack-o-lanterns. I could already hear the blaring music coming from inside. I walked towards the back of the house where I normally entered and saw Rose standing in front of the fridge, placing a few cans and bottles of soda and most likely liquor in there.

Her costume was dangerously short. She was dressed as a schoolgirl, complete with the pigtails and glasses. I knew she had invited Emmett McCarthy to the party, and honestly, I was sort of scared to see his costume, especially if Rose had them match.

"Bella! You finally made it!" she said, speaking loudly over the music.

"Hey," I answered. I quickly decided to warn her about the fact that Charlie was home, so they wouldn't get into trouble.

"Listen, Rose," I said, "My dad's home tonight. I just wanted to let you know to be careful. He could be monitoring the house and stuff."

"Oh fuck! Are you kidding me?" she huffed. "I'm gonna have to tell those…" she trailed off.

"Do you need help with anything?" I asked

"Nah, not right now. Just get your ass in the party. By the way, nice costume, although it _would _have looked better with the shorts," she said with a wink.

"Oh, Rosalie." I rolled my eyes and walked after her to the living room.

Their living room was unrecognizable. Most of the furniture had been moved and there was a mess everywhere. Half the people there, I assumed, didn't even attend Forks' High, and the smell of alcohol and weed was overpowering. There was a makeshift dance floor right in the middle of the living room, and it was jam packed with sweaty bodies grinding against each other. I quickly scanned the crowd to see if I could find Edward or Jasper, but I didn't see either of them. I would've even satisfied myself to see Alice, just because I knew she would be wherever Jasper was. I walked back to the kitchen in order to grab a drink while barely hearing Rosalie's voice warning the people here to keep their smoking and drinking to a minimum because her neighbor was the chief of police and he was home at the moment.

While I was pouring myself a cup of coke, Jasper walked in.

"You weren't at school today."

He seemed startled by my voice and turned to look at me.

"Um, yeah, I stayed home to decorate and such," he said, waving his hand around the place.

"I'm sorry," I apologized.

"For what? You had your reasons to say what you said to me," he expressed.

"Still… I'm sorry."

I didn't know what else to say. I knew I was wrong by talking to them the way I had, but Jasper was wrong as well by assuming Edward was a bad person. I just couldn't ignore that fact.

"Listen, Bell. I'm not mad at you. You're my sister and just know that whatever you decide, I'll be there for you. Just… be careful."

He was standing in front of me then, holding my hands in his.

I looked at him in confusion. What the hell was he talking about? What did I have to be careful about?

"J, I don't… What are –" I said, shaking my head in confusion.

"Listen, you may not see it now, but I can tell he likes you – I noticed from the way he looked at you in the cafeteria yesterday. And I know you like him too. I've known you for as long as I can remember, Bell, and I've _never_ seen you blush like that towards any guy, and I _know _your face flushes at any little thing. Shit, you didn't even blush like that with Alex back in eighth grade."

We both laughed. I couldn't believe he still remembered that silly crush I had on that new kid. That was a very embarrassing year for me.

"My God! I can't believe you still remember that!" I said, smacking his arm.

"Just be careful, please," he said. His tone of voice and facial expression were as serious as a heart attack.

"I will… So, we're good?"

He smiled then, in true Jasper fashion and gave me a hug.

"We're good, soldier. By the way, he's here."

"Who? Edward?"

"Yup."

"Thanks, Jay, you're the best," I said truthfully.

I grabbed my cup and went searching for Edward. I couldn't stop thinking about what Jasper had said._ I know you like him, too. _Did I like Edward? I mean, he was a nice guy and everything, and I had to admit, I liked working with him. But, did I like Edward the way Jasper insinuated? I shook those thoughts out of my mind to ponder at a later occasion and went in search of my "date".

I went back to the living room and pushed my way around the drunken bodies that were dancing there. I even had to shove a couple of them off of me once they started to get a little touchy-feely, thinking I was there to dance with them. It wasn't until I reached the far side of the house that I heard laughter coming from the balcony and saw the silhouette of a group of guys.

As I walked closer, the faint light that illuminated that part of the house revealed to me the individuals that were standing there. I recognized a few that were in some of my classes and others who I could honestly say I had never seen in my life. And then there was Edward. He was standing almost all the way in the corner talking with Ben. He was wearing teal colored medical scrubs and holding a plastic cup in his hand.

I stood there, looking like an idiot, just ogling the guy standing a few feet away from me. For a couple of moments, I completely forgot where I was. All I saw was Edward dressed as a doctor.

I was snapped out of my daydreaming by a random guy who was way too close to me for my liking.

"Looking for someone, darling?" He slurred in my ear.

I stepped away from him instantly without even glancing in his direction. "No, I'm fine."

"You sure are," he slurred while basically undressing me with his eyes.

I frowned and started to walk away from him when he suddenly stepped forward and grabbed my wrist forcefully and pulled me towards him.

"Let's go dance."

"No! Let go of me!" I demanded while trying unsuccessfully to free my hand from his grip.

"C'mon, jus –"

"I believe she said no," I heard a voice say from behind me.

Turning my head, I saw Edward glaring menacingly at the guy.

"Let. Her. Go."

"What's it to you, man?" the guy said without relinquishing his hold on my wrist.

Just as Edward was about to respond, another buff looking guy came up to see what the issue was.

"What the fuck is your problem, jackass?" he said while looking between Edward, his friend, and finally, me. "That's the chief of police's daughter."

The guy sobered up for a second and released my wrist as if it had burned him. They both walked away as fast as their legs could carry them, muttering curses at each other. As soon as they were out of sight, I turned to see Edward with a concerned expression on his face.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Unfortunately, people like him are why people like me need medication." I laughed bitterly while massaging my wrist.

We stood there awkwardly for a moment, and I looked at the floor around me, noticing my soda cup spilled there.

"Do you want to get a drink?" I asked, pointing toward the kitchen.

"Sure."

We walked to the kitchen, got our drinks and sat on the stools that were by the table in a comfortable silence.

"This party is absolutely insane. I've never seen half the people that are here," Edward said while taking a sip from his cup.

"Me either," I replied.

I had suddenly run out of things to talk about. I felt stupid.

"Nice costume," I observed.

"Oh this? It's actually not a costume. These are my dad's hospital scrubs."

"No way! And he just let you wear them to a party?" I asked. I knew Charlie definitely wouldn't have let me use one of his uniforms.

"As long as I don't get any stains on it, and is in mint condition when I return it to him," he shrugged.

"By the way, your costume is nice too. Nice effect," he said commenting on the two thick smudges of black eyeliner I had put on the top of my cheeks.

"Thanks."

Another moment of awkward silenced passed by as we looked at a couple of people walk in and refill their cups or grab some food.

"Hey, you want to dance?" Edward asked, breaking the silence. There was a small smile playing on his lips which I could only assume was caused by remembering the earlier incident.

"Only if you're not gonna get all drunk and creepy with me," I answered.

"I promise to behave," he stated seriously while lifting his right hand up, palm facing forward.

"Let's go then!"

I grabbed his hand and started making my way to the makeshift dance floor that was currently in Rose's living room. There was a semi fast song playing, and I tried to move along with the beat of the music, being careful not to make too much contact with others around me. At one point during all our dancing, Rose came up to me and stage whispered in my ear, "Ooo hot doctor!" All I could do was roll my eyes at her.

During one of the songs, Edward got really close to me and put his hands on my waist, pulling me closer. That same feeling of security I had felt on Sunday was back and this time, I welcomed it.

"Thank you… for helping me back there," I said honestly.

"Don't worry about it," he answered. His grip on my waist tightened momentarily, and I couldn't help but smile inwardly at what I was feeling.

Even though I truly doubted what Jay said to me, I couldn't help but wonder if Edward _did _like me as more than just a friend.

The greater part of the time I spent at the party was on the dance floor with Edward. We only took a couple short breaks – once to get drinks and then when Jasper cut in to dance with me. He gave me his "blessing" once again if I wanted to date Edward, and I tried to ignore him whenever he wanted to make stupid jokes at Edward and me. I swear sometimes Jay acted worse than two old ladies gossiping.

When I told Edward I didn't want to dance anymore, we walked back to the kitchen. As we got there, my phone beeped. I frowned, knowing it was alerting me that I had ten minutes to get to my house and stay on Charlie and Renée's good graces.

"I gotta go, Edward. I have to be home by eleven thirty," I said sadly.

I had really enjoyed my time with him, and frankly, I didn't want to leave.

"Do you live far from here? I can take you if you want."

"Thanks, but I live next door," I said chuckling.

"I'll walk you then. Just let me grab my jacket."

I nodded, "I'll meet you back here in five."

I went off searching for Jasper or Rosalie to tell them I was leaving. I found Rose having a heated make-out session with someone who I could only assume was Emmett. I quickly left and yelled out to her that I was leaving, only I wasn't sure she heard me. I couldn't find Jasper anywhere, so I just texted him and went back to the kitchen to wait for Edward.

He was already there waiting for me, and we made our way outside. The temperature outside had dropped from the time I left home, and I was grateful I was only a few steps away from my house. I wrapped my arms around myself and controlled my shivers to the best of my ability as Edward and I walked.

The night was extremely dark, yet peaceful at the same time. The only lights visible were the ones from my driveway and a couple of other driveways down the block.

When we reached Charlie's cruiser parked right outside, Edward tapped my arm, halting my steps for a second.

"Thanks for inviting me tonight, Bella. I had a good time," he spoke quietly, as if he didn't want to disturb the serene space around us.

"Thanks for coming. I had a good time, too," I replied just as quietly.

I didn't know how to say goodbye to him. Maybe a quick see you later would suffice.

"Can I ask you something?" he whispered.

I nodded.

"I don't know how to tell you this," he chuckled nervously while looking down at his shoes. "I like you, Bella… and if you give me the chance, I would really like to get to know you better."

He was looking dead into my eyes now, and I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. I could finally confirm what Jay had told me when we talked earlier.

Edward liked me.

Edward _liked _me.

"I-I- … um… okay." Was my smart reply. My brain suddenly couldn't handle this information properly.

He smiled widely and stepped towards me. I noticed his gaze flicker momentarily down to my lips just as one of his hands came up to caress the side of my face. I froze for a second, thinking he was going to kiss my lips. Random thoughts came into my head, for example, imagining Charlie busting out through the door and chasing Edward down the block with his gun.

All thoughts were erased from my head as Edward leaned forward and pressed his lips delicately on my cheek. I felt my entire face heat up the moment his lips made contact with my check and my eyes fluttered closed. Once they opened again, Edward's face was back in my line of view with a radiant smile on his face.

"Goodnight, Bella," he whispered, turning and walking back towards Jasper's house.

"It was a good night indeed, Edward," I whispered to the night around me.

* * *

Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!


	8. Letting Out Frustrations

A/N: Hi everybody! Here's a new chapter for you. Major thanks to everyone sticking with the story and all those who've put it on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

*NOTE* 11/07/11 Beta'ed version of this chapter posted.

Many thanks to Amy (Nolebucgrl) for prereading this. To my betas Ginginlee and VoluptuousVamp, Thank you guys for all your comments and your help!

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

EPOV

I walked back to Bella's friend's house – I thought his name was Jasper– feeling lighter. I had spent an entire day planning exactly the way I was going to tell Bella that I liked her. In the end, I think I ended up making a fool out of myself.

When I kissed her cheek, it felt as if time stopped. My first thought was to kiss her lips – they were full, shiny and a deep pink from the chilly wind – but I refrained myself. I wanted to take things slow with Bella. Back in Chicago, the only serious relationship I had was way too fast paced for me, and it felt forced. I didn't want that with her. It was why at the last minute I decided to kiss her cheek instead.

As soon as I walked back in the house, I was bombarded with questions from Mike and the other guys from his little crowd.

"Cullen, my friend, what's up with you and Swan? Huh?" Mike asked, throwing his arm over my shoulder and acting like we were the best of buddies.

"I don't think that's any of your business, Newton," I answered shrugging his arm off of me.

"Whoa! Don't get all sensitive, bro. We just wanted some details."

I scowled at all of them.

"Dude, for a second there, I thought you were queer," I heard Tyler say.

"Fuck you, man!" I said, grabbing my drink and making my way into the living room. Walking there, I bumped into a blonde-haired guy.

"My bad, man. Didn't see you there," I said apologizing.

"It's all good," he said, taking a swig from his red cup. "So you're the one whose honor Bella was defending, huh?"

I looked at him in confusion. As far as I remembered, Bella never defended me from anything. Was he referring to another person? Was he just making shit up?

"I think you got the wrong dude," I said.

I turned to walk back into the kitchen and leave when I heard him addressing me again.

"I doubt I do. Aren't you Edward?"

"Yeah. Why?" This was starting to annoy me. I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, and on top of that, he just stood there scrutinizing me.

"I don't like your crowd," he declared all of a sudden.

I quirked my eyebrow at him. "What are you talking about? You don't even know me."

"I don't," he said smirking darkly. "But I do know Bella."

"You're Jasper?" I asked, curiously.

"The one and only," he answered, raising his cup slightly.

_Ah! Bella's best friend._

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked

I crossed my arms across my chest defensively, as he gave me a challenging look – which I reacted to by returning it full force.

"Listen," he started, taking a deep breath, "I'm not looking for an argument. I just want you to know that Bella's like a sister to me. I know you like her. Hell, I see the googly eyes you throw her way every day."

I looked at him in surprise. I honestly thought he had just wanted to fight me or something because I walked Bella home. Some of the pressure on my chest was relieved at this revelation.

"If you wanna give me the whole 'break her heart and I'll break your neck' shit, I'll tell you right now, I don't need it. Bella means a lot to me and I would _never_ do anything to harm her," I expressed seriously.

"And just because I may sit with those morons at lunch and shit, I'm not like them," I finished.

"I hope so. I don't wanna have to smash your face in the future," Jasper said grinning. "That's why I'm having this little chat with you now."

I shook my head. "Whatever, man."

"Oh, for the record, she likes you too," he said, turning to walk back into the living room.

I told Jasper to keep enjoying his party as I put on my coat again and headed towards the back door of the kitchen. I heard him call me before I left.

"Hey, Cullen, don't get too sensitive about what said, alright?"

"Here, get a hold of me sometime," he said, giving me his phone.

We exchanged numbers, and then I left shortly after.

-x-x-x-

Two weeks had passed since that night at the party, and I could say that I was making progress with Bella. We saw each other in the halls much more often, and my edginess when it came to approaching her had faded almost completely.

She surprised me immensely on Monday when she came up to me at the lunch line and asked me to sit with her and her friends. I had thought about doing the same just a few days before, but ultimately I decided against it, knowing the type of pricks I sat with during lunch. Besides Ben, everyone was bound to start a round of crude jokes about my friendship with Bella, and I didn't want to expose her to that.

As we neared her table, I got the feeling that I wasn't welcome there. At the table, there was Jasper, a short dark haired girl who I assumed was his girlfriend, Rosalie and Emmett – who I had met briefly at the party – and two other guys I didn't recognize. They were all looking in our direction.

I glanced over at Bella to see her looking everywhere but to our destination.

"Hey, we can find another table," I told her.

She shook her head. "No, we're sitting _there_." She emphasized her point by nodding her head toward the table.

I followed her silently, and once we arrived at the table, I took a seat on her left, leaving Emmett sitting on the other side of me. Bella's posture was rigid and it reflected in her tone of voice when she introduced me to the group.

"You all know Edward, right?" Bella said, pointing towards me. "I told him he could sit with us if he wanted."

"Fine by me," Rosalie shrugged, playing with her light-colored hair.

"I see we're inviting the whole school to sit with us now," the short-haired girl sneered. Looking at the way she stabbed the lettuce on her plate, she seemed pretty upset.

"Ali!" Jasper said in a harsh tone.

"What? It's true!" she said innocently. "It's like we're picking up all the strays." It didn't get past me the fact that she said all this while glaring in Bella's and my direction.

_What__the__fuck__was__her__problem?_ I thought.

The other two guys sitting at the table didn't help either. In fact, they were just adding more wood to the fire with their mumbles and contained laughter.

"What the frig, Alice? Chill! You didn't act like this when I invited Emmett to sit with us." Rosalie said.

"That was different!" Alice argued.

"How so?" Rosalie challenged her, crossing her arms.

"Guys, cool it. Babe, come with me for a sec," Jasper addressed Alice while grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the table with him.

Bella turned to look at me with an apologetic expression. "Sorry about her; she just can't stand me."

"It's okay, but we can still go an –" I didn't even get to finish my sentence when Bella cut me off.

"No! We're staying here. I'm not giving her what she wants," she said with finality.

"I honestly don't know how you two get along," Bella told Rosalie.

"Neither do I," she replied, leaning into Emmett's side.

"So…when did you two become official?" Bella asked, pointing between Emmett and Rosalie.

At the change of topic, Rosalie smiled widely at Bella before answering.

"Oh, that was back at the party. I just didn't want to go public right away."

We settled into our own private conversations, Rosalie with Bella, and me with Emmett. We started talking about college since he was graduating this year, but the conversation quickly shifted to sports and ultimately me joining the school's football team – again.

"So, Edward, I heard you might be trying out for the team this season." Emmett looked like a decent guy, and I honestly didn't want to be rude to him, but this shit had to stop already. It was ridiculous.

"Nah, you heard wrong," I answered simply.

"What a shame. Rumor has it, you're pretty good."

I smirked but didn't say anything else. I just wanted people to drop the subject already.

A short while later, an awkward silence settled over the table as Jasper and Alice returned. Alice was sniffling slightly, and from the look in her eyes, it seemed as if she had been crying. For a second I kind of felt bad for her, but then I decided, fuck it, she wasn't exactly sociable when Bella and I arrived at the table, so I didn't have to sympathize with her.

Rosalie's facial expression, though, looked torn between comforting her friend and keeping her stance at not tolerating her earlier behavior. Finally, she reached for Alice's hand and asked her if she was okay, but Alice snapped her hand back as if something had burned her. I guess she had wanted Rosalie to have her back.

The vibe around the table stayed tense. Although everyone had gone back to minding their own business, we were all walking on eggshells when it came to the topics being discussed. I felt so awkward sitting there and I even got the strong urge to just leave, but I didn't want to leave Bella alone – although I knew she could take care of herself. I kept glancing at her every few minutes and noticed she kept massaging her temples. Whenever she caught me staring, she would just smile faintly and start playing with her food again.

"I'm gonna go to my locker and get a few things. See you in Bio?" said Bella, getting ready to leave.

"Yeah…um…I'll go with you," I offered.

"No, that's okay; it'll only take a sec."

"'Kay."

-x-x-x-

Bella never showed up in Bio. At first I thought she was just going to be late, but then twenty minutes passed and there was still no sign of her.

As inconspicuously as I could, I took my phone out and sent her a text.

_Where are you? –E_

Ten minutes passed when I never got a response from her and it worried me.

_Where__is__she?_I thought.

I looked out the window, toward the parking lot and searched for her outdated red truck. It was still parked at the far end, so she was probably still in school grounds. I saw Jasper's car parked a few spots further and instantly thought of texting him as well. He would probably know where she went. Right at that moment I was grateful that I had exchanged phone numbers with him.

_Hey do you know if Bella's still in school? –E _

_She is. Doesn't she have Banner's class w you? –J_

_Yeah, but she hasn't showed up yet... –E _

_That's strange. I saw her at her locker 10 mins ago, said she was on her way there. –J_

_She was pissed during lunch. Do you know if she goes somewhere in the school whn she's feeling like that? –E_

_Bleachers on the football field. –J_

_Thanks –E_

_Keep me posted. –J_

Having a clue on where Bella might possibly be, I wasted no time in asking Mr. Banner for a hall pass. Once I was out of the class I practically ran to the football field. Careful not to get caught leaving the school building, I walked toward the back exit of the school. From my spot, I could clearly make out the bleachers, and there was a figure sitting right on the third row.

I was glad I had decided to wear a thick sweatshirt to school that day because the wind was whipping violently. It was a miracle that it wasn't raining.

I quickened my steps and finally recognized Bella's signature gray coat when I reached the bottom of the bleachers. I couldn't see her face because it was turned to the opposite side, and she had her hood drawn up.

I walked up and sat next to her on the bleachers. She was looking straight into the field, while turning what looked like a cigarette between her fingers.

"I hear those are bad for ya," I stated, pointing toward it.

"I'm still debating whether to smoke it, or just throw it out," she said smiling sadly.

"I'd say do the latter."

She turned her face then, and looked straight into my eyes. She looked tired. Her eyes were sad and shiny with accumulated tears.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?" Bella asked, breaking eye contact with me.

"I could ask you the same exact thing," I replied.

She took a deep breath, and looked down between her hands. I sat in silence just watching her. I wondered what was going through her head at that moment. I wished I could understand her better. Something told me that her mood wasn't just caused because of the whole Alice argument in the cafeteria; there was something else unsettling her. My need to just be close to her and help her kept growing day by day, and right at that moment, just sitting with her, it grew impossibly hard for me to just sit by and not say anything. I didn't know what to do.

"Are you okay?" It was the only idiot thing that my brain came up with.

She shrugged. "I'll get over it. Eventually."

I took that as my opportunity to let her know that my intentions weren't bad. I wanted to let her know that she could confide in me. Not just because I wanted her, but because I truthfully wanted to be her friend.

"Listen, um…I know Jasper's your bff and all…but…I hope you know that you can trust me," I said.

With my finger under her chin, I turned her head so she could see my face and know that I wasn't bullshitting. When she finally looked at me, I finished my statement, "I mean it."

"I know, Edward," she said nodding her head. "I feel comfortable with you and know that I can trust you…but I've still just basically met you. Give me some time."

I nodded, mentally giving myself a point. She felt comfortable with me. That definitely had to mean something.

We sat there in silence for a moment, and just as I was going to suggest to her to come back to class with me, she spoke.

"I just…" she hesitated.

She couldn't formulate words to describe what she was feeling. She waved her hands around and when she tried to speak, only a hiccup could be heard.

When she turned to see me, there were big, thick tears rolling down her face.

"Bella…"

I pulled her close and held her to me as she sobbed nonstop. My hand pressed against her head while the other rubbed calming circles on her back. I felt her hands snake around my waist, holding me tighter to her.

"Shh… It's okay, Bella. Don't stress so much," I kept whispering repeatedly in hopes that her sobs would settle down.

"I just can't deal with all this! I hate it!" she cried.

My heart ached just seeing her like that. I wanted desperately to help her, but I needed her to talk to me first. I needed to know what exactly was happening that caused her breakdown. I knew that technically, we were just getting to know each other, but my feelings for this girl were growing every single day.

"It's gonna be okay…I'm here for you…" I said over and over again in hopes that she would talk to me or at least calm down.

At that moment, I couldn't bring myself to care about anything. I didn't care about the school building that was behind me. I didn't care that I had to go back to class. I hadn't even texted Jasper back to let him know I had found Bella. I wasn't even the least bit worried about what would happen back home when my parents got the call that I walked out of my class and never came back. All that mattered was the distressed girl that was holding on to me for dear life.

As I kept repeating soothing words in her ear, I faintly heard the bell ring, signaling the end of class. Bella's sobs had started to subside, and all that was left was the occasional sniffle. Her arms loosened their hold on my waist and she straightened up to look at me. On impulse, I reached my hand up and brushed the leftover tears away from her face.

"I'm sorry I made you miss Bio," she said apologetically.

"It's okay… it's not like we were learning something significant for survival," I said.

She laughed a little, but it still sounded strained.

"Are _you_okay though?" I asked

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she said absently.

I frowned at her answer, but didn't say anything else. I didn't expect her to act like nothing happened. I had to be patient.

Bella took a moment to collect herself, and then we both made our way back to the main school building. We walked in a comfortable silence; the only sounds were those of the leaves rustling. When we were approaching the door, Bella started walking towards the parking lot.

"Hey, aren't you going to your other classes?" I called after her.

"Nah, I got a pass from the nurse's office, so I'm going home."

I walked with her to where her truck was parked and she turned to face me once she had unlocked the door. She started fiddling with the sleeves of her jacket and looked up at me through her lashes – she was nervous again.

"Thanks for staying with me…and basically daring me to do this," she said as she took an entire pack of cigarettes out of her bag and tossed them.

"Anytime. Listen…you should call Jasper. He was worried about you."

"Thanks, I will," she said, smiling. This time, her smile was more genuine.

She never smoked the cigarette, and for that I was grateful. I made a mental note to ask her about that. I didn't want to reverse my efforts at making her feel at least a little bit better by asking her about it now.

She turned to get in her truck, but I grabbed her hand, turning her to face me again, and leaned forward to press my lips against her pink cheek.

"I'll see you later, Bella," I whispered and walked away.

"Can I call you later?" I heard her say.

"Of course."

-x-x-x-

Back at my house, things were tense. As soon as I walked inside I knew shit was gonna go down because Esme was home early, and she was slamming stuff around the kitchen. She had gone back to work at the realtor's office when her vacation ended last week, and she would normally get home an hour or two after I got home. I left my bag at the foot of the stairs, and walked cautiously towards the kitchen, trying to make as little noise as possible. I could tell she had just gotten in, due to the fact that I could hear her heels clicking and she still had her classic navy blue pantsuit on. I leaned on the kitchen doorframe for a moment, thinking of how to answer her in case she was angry at me for skipping my last two classes, before alerting her to my presence.

After my little chat with Bella earlier, I didn't have the energy, or the motivation to go back to my classes. I knew for sure I was going to get written up for cutting classes.

"Hey, Ma. You're home early," I said casually, walking up to her and giving her my customary kiss on the cheek.

When she turned to look at me, she was furious. Her face was red and she was frowning at me disapprovingly. Her eyes had darkened significantly, and she ignored my greeting as she moved to the fridge. She kept ignoring me until she finished taking a sip of water, and then slammed the cup on the counter.

"Can you tell me what the _hell_has gotten into you lately, huh?" she said lowly. Her tone was strong, and I knew she was trying to stay under control.

I knew one hundred percent that I was in deep shit. I didn't incriminate myself further, though; I just opted to play dumb.

"What are you talking about? I haven't done anything," I replied.

"Oh! So you think skipping classes isn't doing anything? You've been acting really strange lately, Edward."

That was low. Just because I didn't go to _one_fucking class, all of a sudden I was acting odd. How fucked up was that? What else was she gonna accuse me with?

I scoffed. "Are you kidding me right now? It was one class, Mom. _One_!" I said, raising my voice slightly. "And what else have I done to act as you say 'strange'?" I emphasized her words using my hands to quote her.

"Correction," she snapped. "It was _two_classes – history and biology."

"So? It was only one day. It's not like I do it all the time!" I snapped back.

She closed her eyes and blew out a deep breath. She was clearly angry, but I honestly didn't understand why. She was acting like I was a fucking reckless teenager. It bothered me to no end.

"That's not the damn point, Edward."

"Then what is it? 'Cuz I sure as hell don't know," I expressed.

I could feel the anger building up inside me. I wanted so fucking bad to just let out all my frustrations, but I knew if I did in front of her, I was gonna be even more fucked. I tried to reign in my temper by balling my hands up into tight, painful fists.

"I want to know what's happening with you," she demanded.

I shook my head in disbelief. "What could I possibly be doing for you to think that something is happening with me?"

"You don't talk to me or your father anymore. You rarely come out of your room, and on top of that, now you want to start skipping classes!" she exclaimed.

I just stood there, staring at her silently. If I talked, I wasn't going to be able to control everything I had to say. She took a tentative step towards me and exhaled loudly again – no doubt trying to calm herself. I could hear the change in her voice with the next statement she uttered.

"Please, tell me what's bothering you."

I looked down, suddenly finding a dirt spot on my sneaker interesting. I wanted so bad to tell her what was bothering me. I wanted to tell her that I hated to see her so conflicted – as she had been the past few weeks. I wanted to tell her how much I detested that she and dad were always whispering and ignoring my questions.

"I – there's nothing. I'm fine. It won't happen again," I said defeated. I felt like a child who had just been reprimanded for something insignificant.

"Edward–"

"I said I was fine. Now I'm gonna go study," I said with heavy strain in my voice.

I grabbed my bag from the end of the stairs and ran up to my room, slamming my door closed with my foot. I collapsed on my bed, and let out a few angry yells muffled by my pillows, until I felt I had calmed down a bit. I was honestly not in the mood for studying, so I grabbed my guitar from the closet and strummed a slow beat song to help me stay at ease.

Halfway through the third song I played, my phone started ringing. My afternoon instantly brightened up when I saw Bella's name on my caller ID.

"Hello," I answered, a little too enthusiastically.

"Hey, Edward. Umm…are you busy?" she asked. I could hear a rustling sound of some kind in the background.

"No, not really. What's up?" I said, even though I still had a shitload of homework to finish that I hadn't even started.

She was quiet for a moment. If it wasn't for the sound of her soft breathing I would've assumed she'd hung up on me.

"I was wondering if…you wanted to go for a drive with me…you know…to talk and stuff," she said timidly.

"Yeah, sure! Where do you want to meet?" I asked.

I heard someone – most likely her mother – talking to her in the background, and then Bella take a deep breath. "I'll wait for you at the end of the block where my house is," she said.

"Okay. I'll be there in ten," I replied, quickly hanging up.

I put my phone back in my pocket and put my guitar away back in its case. Heading downstairs, I went straight to the door, not even bothering to tell Esme that I was going out. Truth was, I was still kind of pissed.

When I opened the front door, Carlisle was just getting out of his car and asked me where I was headed. I was vague in my answer, saying I just going to take a drive not too far from the house.

"I'd like a word with you when you get back," he stated seriously, raising his eyebrow.

All I could do was nod.

-x-x-x-

Once I picked up Bella from where we were supposed to meet, I drove aimlessly for about ten minutes. During that time, she explained to me that she didn't want her mother to get suspicious as to where she was going, and with whom, hence the reason why she told me to wait for her at the end of the block. She'd also told her she'd be within walking distance of the house.

As soon as she had gotten into the car, I noticed she looked a hell of a lot better than when I had seen her at school. Her expression was still somber, but it wasn't as distressed as before. I still had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her, but I refrained for the time being in case they made her uncomfortable.

"So, where to?" I asked her as I waited for the light to turn green.

"Um… there's this playground I like to go to a couple of blocks from here. Just make a left when you see the coffee shop," she answered.

I got to the playground fairly quickly and parked my car right next to the coffee shop. It wasn't extremely cold yet – which was rare since it was the middle of November – but the park was empty of children, and there were only a few people sitting on the benches.

Bella went inside the coffee shop and bought us both a cup of tea. We walked to the park and chose a bench that was farthest away from the other people who were there.

"You didn't have to that," I said, taking the cup of tea she had offered me.

She shrugged, sitting crossed-legged on the bench and patting the spot next to her. "Consider it a thank you for today."

"Can I ask you something?" I said and she nodded. She looked calmed enough, so I just took the opportunity and didn't beat around the bush.

"Do you smoke?"

She looked at me intriguingly, before looking down and taking another sip of her tea.

"I used to. I got a little rebellious after my grandmother passed away two years ago," she said sadly.

I couldn't help but wonder if she was still grieving her grandmother's death. It was the only thing that came to my mind when I thought of her breakdown earlier.

"I'm sorry," I said truthfully. "How did you manage to quit though?"

"I was forced to do it actually," she chuckled.

"Jasper caught me doing it a few times, and threatened to tell Charlie, but I never took him seriously," she explained.

"I'm glad he snitched then," I said, smiling slightly.

She just rolled her eyes playfully at my attempt at humor, and continued with her story.

"Yeah, that little fucker snitched, and Charlie almost sent me to military school for that," she said downright laughing now.

I almost spluttered the bit of tea that I had just been drinking when she mentioned that.

"No way!"

She just nodded her head.

"After a long and excruciating talk with both my parents, and three long months of grounding, I guess I learned my lesson," she said.

Her voice took a more serious tone, and so did her facial expression when she said "I still get the urge to do it when I'm overly upset…like today."

An awkward silence settled between us. I still had so much to ask her, but I didn't want to pry anything out of her.

"You wanna know what stopped me from smoking today?" she said, breaking the silence.

I looked at her, trying to express with my eyes that I wanted her to tell me.

"The way you looked at me when I told you I planned to smoke it. It _finally_ sunk into me that not only was I hurting myself with my actions, but those around me. So… thank you for that."

"That's what friends are for, right?" I answered.

We sat for another moment, and Bella started playing with her empty cup. I couldn't see her face very well because of her long hair covering it. I sat there looking at her and trying to find a way to tell her how I felt without making the moment awkward. I had to do it right now or else I was going to chicken out.

"Listen, Bella, I want to tell you something." I stated. I looked straight into her eyes to gauge her reaction when I finally told her.

"I like you too, Edward," she blurted out quietly. Her cheeks started to stain a cherry color.

"What?" I asked surprised.

"I know you like me," she said slowly. "And…I like you as well."

_Did I just hear correctly?_

I was smiling so hard, my face hurt. I was rewarded by Bella giving me an encouraging smile of her own. With all the events that had happened, I was exceptionally happy to see her smiling genuinely.

She grabbed my hand and held it in between both of hers. Despite the weather, her hands felt very warm against mine.

"I know I told you to give me time to get to know you better and stuff, but I'd like to try to…be more than your friend…that's if you still want to," she said shyly.

I rested my hand on her cheek, and coaxed her to look up at me. I had no words to describe to her how happy she had just made me feel, just by telling me those simple words.

"I do want to, Bella," I whispered to her. "And, I promise to not rush you into anything. I value our friendship above anything else."

I hoped she could see how seriously I took our friendship and that I wouldn't take a chance at being with her for granted.

She smiled widely at me and leaned forward to give me an awkward sitting hug. Our moment was interrupted though when her phone started ringing.

"Shit! It's my mom," she cursed when she saw the caller ID.

"Hey, mom," she muttered, as she stood up from the bench and started walking. "Yeah, I know. I'll be home soon."

I started walking behind her, but I kept my distance to give her privacy. While she spoke quietly with her mom, I questioned in my head if it would be too forward of me to ask her out on a date. I decided to just wing it and see what she'd tell me.

"So, my mom has impeccable timing, don't you think?" she said, and I just laughed at the whole situation.

We started walking towards the Volvo when I decided to ask her.

"Bella, would you like to go on a date with me on Friday?" I asked her.

"I'd love to," she smiled. "Nothing fancy though," she warned with a mock stern look on her face.

"Deal."

We reached my car and I opened the passenger side door for her before getting in. There was a comfortable silence between us while I drove her home, but I became aware of the fact that she kept glancing at me every so often with her cute little smile.

I got to her street and parked at the end, killing the engine and getting out of the car. I wanted to open the door for her, but she had already gotten out when I reached her side. When we started walking, our fingers touched and I took that as an opportunity to wrap my hand around hers. She didn't hesitate nor let go of my hand, and I was beaming inside. Once we reached her neighbor's house she turned to me and wrapped her arms tightly around my waist. I returned her embrace contentedly and lowered my head to rest atop hers.

"Thank you so, so much," she mumbled against my chest.

"Don't mention it," I said, reluctantly loosening my hold on her.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Have a good night." I leaned down to kiss her cheek again, except this time, I kissed closer to her mouth.

She smiled and waved, turning to walk to her house, as I turned and walked to the Volvo.

As I got in the car, I thought of all the events that had happened in the day, and even though I didn't get as many questions answered as I wanted, I got something better – a chance with Bella.

And at that moment, I couldn't be happier.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think. :)


	9. First Date

A/N: Hi everybody! Thank you all of you who still read this little story and all those who've put it on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

My betas Ginginlee and VoluptuousVamp, and my pre-reader Amy (Nolebucgrl) are awesome! Thank you guys for all your help and comments.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

* * *

BPOV

Renée was _not _happy about the fact that I had faked feeling sick just to get out of school early. After lecturing me for almost an hour on how important my education was, she finally left me to my own devices.

Right when I was finishing my English paper, my phone rang. I wasn't surprised to see Jasper's name on the caller ID.

"Jay, what's up?" I said.

"Hey, just checkin' up on ya. Heard you ditched all your afternoon classes," he said, chuckling slightly.

"Yeah… I just… my head was in a really bad place, that's all," I answered truthfully.

"Are you okay though? I mean, I know things with your parents aren't going that well and stuff…" he said sounding concerned.

"Yeah, I am now," I answered.

I purposely left out that I was about to start smoking again. I didn't want to run the risk of him telling Charlie again and then definitely getting shipped off to the desert or something. Being my best friend, I trusted Jasper with my life, but this was the one thing I would never be able to trust him with.

"Listen, I'm sorry for the way Alice has been behaving lately. I don't kn –"

"It's okay. It's not your fault," I interrupted. He was always apologizing to me for his girlfriend's behavior, and, honestly, it was getting aggravating.

"Look," I said, "you know I'll always see you like my brother, and I get how much you care for Alice and all. But… I think I'm just going to distance myself a bit from the group."

I could hear Jasper mumbling under his breath before speaking up. "What? Come on, Bell! You don't have to do that. I mean, weren't things fine just a few days ago?" he asked.

"Yeah, but they were only fine because Alice had Rosalie to back her up whenever she wanted to say something snarky about me. Now that Rose is actually making an effort to get along with me, she doesn't have that support anymore. To be honest, I don't know how much more bullshit I can take from her. So before I say something I might end up regretting, I'd rather just… walk away," I explained.

Jasper exhaled loudly. "I know what you mean, Bell, but, c'mon… can you just think about this for a second?" he asked.

"I will. But I'm not making any promises. I'd hate to be in the middle if anything happened between you and her," I said.

"That's not going to happen. Ali knows you're family to me, Bell. I don't want to lose my best sister," he said.

"Jay!" I said laughing. "You better hope Rose doesn't hear that," I stated between giggles.

"Psssh, ,,this is our secret. Hey, can we talk later? Mama Whitlock's calling."

"Yeah, sure. I'll call you later," I said.

I was being honest when I told Jasper I didn't want to be the cause of an argument between him and Alice. But her attitude was getting out of hand – and my patience was wearing thin. It still left me debating whether I should take his advice and think this though, or just follow my gut.

_What was I going to do now?_

-x-x-x-

I ended up following my original decision; I spent my lunchtimes the rest of the week in the library. The first day I was by myself, but for the past two days, Edward had joined me.

After our talk on the playground, I felt like a different person. I felt even more at ease around him. Although I was still embarrassed about the fact that he had to see me cry my guts out and almost engage in that horrid habit I had developed, I was glad I had someone else to talk to other than Jasper and to know that I could count on him.

Things at home had gotten fairly quiet as well. Renée wasn't questioning me as much, there was less arguing, and dinner was a silent event. I guess my parents were in some sort of truce for the moment. I couldn't be happier about that.

On Wednesday, with the help of Angela, I came up with an excuse to go out. I told my parents that I was going out with a couple of friends to celebrate how well we had done on a class project. Since my parents knew Angela and her parents, they didn't have a problem letting me go. I wasn't outright lying; there was a group of students going out for that reason. But I was going on a date with Edward. Angela agreed to help me after making me promise her that I would spill about our date when I saw her in school. Easy enough.

When I first told my parents, Renée had been disappointed because apparently she thought our cooking together was going to be a weekly routine. After promising that I would make it up to her the next day, she finally brightened and didn't question me further about my "group outing".

Charlie was another case entirely; He proceeded to ask me a thousand and one questions about the whole event.

"Where is this party going to take place again?" he asked, giving me his suspicious cop stare.

"It's not a party, Dad, and I'm not sure yet. Angela just told me we were all meeting at her house and then we'd go from there," I answered.

"Are you driving to Angela's house?" he asked. This time, he shifted his eyes away from the TV.

"Ummm… maybe. If not, I'll just call Ang and have one of them pick me up."

"I want you home by eleven," he said.

-x-x-x-

It was finally Friday, and I couldn't wait until my date with Edward.

Thanks to Jasper's big mouth, Rosalie found out and insisted on helping me pick out the perfect outfit.

She and I were getting along better and better each day. There were still certain times where I felt skeptical about her, but I could see she was genuinely making an effort. I had now been sitting on my bed for probably half an hour just listening to her give me advice so I had a "spectacular first date!" – Her words, not mine.

"… and you have to smile more often," I heard her say.

"Bella! Are you listening to me?" she asked, exasperation clear in her voice. She was standing in front of me now, holding up a three-quarter sleeved purple top and black jeans.

"Yes, Rosalie. I was listening. I have to smile more often. Happy?" I asked.

"Ecstatic! Now, finish getting ready. I'll wait for you downstairs," she said, handing me my clothes and walking out of the room.

I quickly changed out of my robe and finished getting ready. I had only about thirty minutes until Edward was due to pick me up. Still not knowing where he was taking me, I decided to just put on a pair of flat boots, not too elegant, but not too casual either. After applying some eyeliner and lip-gloss, I pulled my hair away from my face, used a purple headband to hold it in place, and grabbed a few accessories. After one last look in the mirror, I convinced myself I looked decent enough and left my room.

As I approached the living room I could hear my mom and Rosalie chatting.

"We miss you around here, Rose. I think Bella could use a few more girlfriends in her life," I heard my mom say.

"Yeah, I know," replied Rosalie quietly. "I'm trying to fix it though."

I chose that moment to interrupt their talk.

"You're doing a good job at it," I said truthfully.

The both looked back at me, surprise clear on their faces, and Rose came up to give me a hug.

"You sure clean up nicely, Swan," she said laughing.

"You look beautiful, sweetie," my mom said.

"Thank you, guys," I said.

"So, I talked to Angela, and she's gonna come pick me up," I explained.

_I hope she bought that, 'cause Angela's family doesn't own a Volvo, _I thought.

At that moment, I heard the sound of a car horn. I looked out the window, and saw Edward's car parked outside. I was glad he stayed inside his car like I had asked him to just in case my mom decided to be nosy.

"I'll see you guys later," I said as I put on my jacket and walked out of the house.

As I sat down in the car, Edward leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on my cheek.

"Hi… again," he whispered.

"Hey," I whispered back.

I was suddenly feeling nervous. Although I had gotten used to being around Edward, this was very different than how we were when we were at school. Being in the car with him, without having to worry about people staring and gossiping, felt more private. Edward's eyes lingered on my face for a while longer before smiling again and driving out.

"So…" I said, breaking the silence. "Do I get to know where we're going now?" I asked.

"Yep. We are going to Sunset Lanes," he said, smiling widely.

My eyes widened in surprise. "Seriously?" I asked. My smile grew until my cheeks hurt.

"One hundred percent," he said.

_Bowling! He's taking me bowing! Oh this date's starting off amazingly, _I thought.

"I take it you like the idea?" he asked, clearly amused.

"Like it? I love it! I haven't gone bowling in such a long time!" I said.

I could barely contain my excitement. Going bowling was one of my favorite pastimes, and I was thrilled at the idea of sharing that with Edward.

As we got closer to the bowling alley, I could see the bright neon orange sign, and I couldn't contain my excitement anymore. I was literally bouncing in my seat.

"Wow, I never thought someone would get so excited just to go bowling," Edward said, chuckling.

He parked and got out of the car before I could answer him. He came around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for me, which I had to admit was a very charming move.

"It's not just that," I said, "these people also make _the best _french fries in Forks," I said excitedly.

Edward, who was still laughing quietly at me, put his arm around my waist, and guided us inside the alley. Upon entering, I noticed everything was the same as the last time I had been here. The only difference was that there were a whole bunch of Thanksgiving decorations all around. I was surprised the place wasn't jam-packed like it normally was – being that it was a Friday night – but then again people were preparing for the upcoming holidays. We approached the main desk, and Harry, the owner, waved happily at me when he saw us.

"Bella! Long time no see," he said pleasantly.

"Hey, Harry! How's it going?" I asked.

"It's all good. You know, keeping the place in shape and all," he said, pointing around to the alley.

"So, who's your buddy here?" he asked, pointing at Edward.

I looked back at Edward, and he was standing a couple of steps behind me, no doubt giving me space to talk to Harry. He placed his hand in mine when I reached out to him, and I pulled him to stand next to me.

"Um… this is my friend, Edward. Edward, this is Harry, the owner of this lovely establishment," I said, introducing the two.

"Nice to meet you, young man," Harry said, extending his hand towards Edward to shake.

"Likewise," Edward responded, returning his handshake.

"I think you were the person I spoke to when I called to reserve a lane," Edward said.

Harry furrowed his brow, "Cullen, right?"

"Yes, sir,"

"Well, I'll get your things ready. You guys get lane twenty-two," Harry said, leaving us alone for a few moments.

"I see you're a regular here," Edward stated.

"Yeah, I used to come down here with Jasper a lot," I said shrugging.

Edward and I got our shoes and walked over to lane twenty-two which was at the far end side of the alley, away from the other two families that were currently playing.

Harry came over to us and asked us if we needed anything else. After assuring us that he would send us some of his amazing fries, he left us to our own devices.

"So, since we both know how to play, I think we should make this game interesting," Edward said.

"How so?" I asked. I was up for the challenge, especially if it would guarantee me a ridiculously awesome time with Edward.

"Well, if I win, I'll get to pick out where we go for our next date, and if you win, then you get to pick out where we go next. Deal?"

"What makes you think we're going on a second date?" I asked playfully.

"Considering the amount of fun we'll have here, I think that gives me a few brownie points." he said, winking at me.

"Touché."

We finished lacing up our shoes and went searching for the right ball to use.

"So, who starts first?" I asked when we got back to the lane.

"Isn't it a rule that ladies go first?" Edward questioned back.

I rolled my eyes and went to put our names on the screen.

We played an entire game before taking a break. During the first frame, I managed to get a strike, while Edward missed a spare. Every time that he had a turn, he would walk up to me and kiss my cheek before throwing the ball – claiming it would give him good luck. Every time he kissed my cheek, I could feel my face getting redder and redder; I probably resembled a maraschino cherry in color. I just wished he would kiss someplace else on my face, but I didn't want to ruin this, and I knew I had to be patient with him.

Edward and I finished the first game with tied scores. Harry had shown up minutes earlier with our order of fries and drinks, so we sat at the table and talked for a while.

"How did you learn to play?" Edward asked after taking a sip of his soda.

"Jasper taught me. It was something we did to get away from our houses," I said.

Back when I started playing, bowling was a very therapeutic thing for me. This alley had seen a lot of tears both from Jasper and I.

"When did _you _learn to play?" I asked him in return.

"Probably around eight years old. Esme – my mom – used to take me as a reward for getting good grades," he said.

His forest green eyes had a faraway look in them, as if he were remembering something.

"Are you okay?" I asked. I took hold of his hand and he squeezed back reassuringly.

His eyes focused back to mine, and he smiled nervously shaking his head. "I'm fine. Sorry for spacing out," he said. He grew quiet for a moment before suddenly asking "when's your birthday?"

"What?" I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.

"When is your birthday?" he asked again.

"When's yours?" I asked back.

He laughed then. "I asked you first." He was playing with my fingers on the hand that was still holding his own; I couldn't help but giggle.

"Fair enough. Mine's on February 30th," I said smirking.

"Cool. Mine's J– wait a minute," he exclaimed.

I laughed loudly at his facial expression.

"Oh, you think that's funny?" he asked.

He got up from his seat and walked towards me slowly. I was still laughing uncontrollably when I noticed just a second too late what his plan was. His arms were around me then, and he lifted me off the seat, tickling my sides in the process. I was sure my laughing fit had scared the people around us, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

"Fine, fine! I'll tell you!" I gasped. I was still trying to get my breathing under control, but Edward was making that incredibly difficult considering how close he was holding me to his chest.

I looked into his deep grass green eyes, and they were sparkling. Although his face was serious, he still looked amused. I could feel his warmth radiating through me, and his eyes danced between my own. One of his hands then came up to caress the side of my face, before he whispered, "I've wanted to do this for a while now."

I could barely hear his voice over the noisy music, and all I could do was stand still. I was held hostage by his piercing gaze. My breath hitched as I realized what he was about to do. Before I could fully exhale, he leaned down and his lips made contact with mine. Instinctively, I closed my eyes, and returned his kiss. One of my hands reached up to the nape of his neck, caressing the little hairs there. His soft and warm lips moved in unison with mine, but he made no move to deepen the kiss, and neither did I. I had never experienced a kiss as gentle and innocent as that one, and in that moment, I lost myself in it completely. I didn't care that we were in a public place, or if people were watching us. I didn't want to open my eyes and face reality. All I cared was about the person that was currently holding me, the same person I was holding and kissing.

Way too soon for my liking, he pulled away and smiled shyly at me. "We should finish our game," he said, loosening his hold from my waist.

We played a new game, and this time Edward beat me by twenty-two points. I figured it had to be because I was still dazed from that amazing as hell kiss.

We decided to grab a quick dinner at the alley and an extra order of fries since Edward liked them so much. While he was buying that, I sneaked over to Harry's desk so I could at least pay for the game, but found out that Edward had already paid in advance.

After our dinner was over, we thanked Harry for his assistance, and I promised him that I would tell Jasper to get in contact with him. When we left the place, Edward was convinced that our date wouldn't be complete until we got dessert, so he drove us to a nearby bakery and bought us each a chocolate mousse cupcake. I tried to get him to let me pay for it at least since he had paid for everything else, but he outright refused, saying I was wounding his ego.

Once he got back to the car, he drove us to the same playground we went to earlier in the week, but this time we stayed inside the confines of his warm car.

"Wow, did they give these steroid injections?" I asked once I saw the size of the cupcake.

Edward didn't comment but just laughed at my reaction.

"I'm surprised you've never walked in there before," he said. He took a bite out of his cupcake, and had a smear of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. My eyes were completely fixated on that spot on his mouth, until instinctively I reached over and wiped the chocolate off with my thumb.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

Edward nodded.

"What makes you happy?" It was just a random and impulsive question, but for some reason, I wanted to know the answer.

"Right now, being right here with you makes me happy. You know why?" he asked.

I shook my head and prompted him to continue.

"I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not around you," he explained.

I wanted to just lean over that console and kiss him. I was glad he had been so honest with me. _We're off to a great start, _I thought.

"What about you, have you ever eaten any children?" he asked.

"Did I hear you correctly?" I asked. I was laughed so hard that my stomach was hurting and there were tears forming in my eyes.

"It was a joke," he said after our laughter died down, "But seriously, you still haven't answered my previous question," he stated.

"Which one?"

"I asked when was you birthday," he said reminding me.

Oh that. "It's um… September 13th," I said softly.

Edward must have noticed the change in my facial expression. When I met his gaze, his brow was furrowed and he looked at me with confused eyes.

"Are you okay?" He asked, concerned.

"Yeah… I just… don't wanna talk about it. Tell me when _your _birthday is," I said, hopefully trying to divert his attention.

"Um, June 20th," he answered. He gave me a look that clearly said he wasn't convinced that I was fine, but I ignored it completely and changed the subject.

We talked for a while; he asked about how my life was back in Florida, and I in turn asked him about his life in Chicago. We were in the middle of sharing embarrassing middle school stories, when I looked at the clock on his dashboard and noticed I had twenty-five minutes to get home. Edward drove away from the playground, but we still kept our light-hearted conversation going. Internally though, I was dreading the moment I reached home.

The ride back to my house was far too quick for my liking. I hadn't felt as happy as I did that night in a long time. Once we pulled up to my house, I took Edward's hand in mine, to prevent him from getting out of the car, and also because I wanted some type of contact with him.

"Thank you so much for tonight, Edward! I had a really great time," I said truthfully.

"Me too," he answered. "So… am I allowed to ask you out on second date?" A small smile was playing on his lips, and I couldn't help staring at him.

I rolled my eyes at him before answering, "Yes, you are."

"Great! I'll plan something then." _Sigh, _and there goes that wink again.

We were still playing with each other's fingers, but a peek at the clock showed I now only had ten minutes to get inside. Even though I didn't want to leave, I also didn't want to face Charlie's wrath if I was late.

"I umm… I have to get going. Don't want to be late," I said sadly.

"I wish I could walk you to the door," he said. He had this look in his eyes which could only be described as puppy dog eyes. I had to look away – and fast – or else I would've fallen for it.

"So do I. But, all in due time, okay?"

He nodded in agreement.

"Can I kiss you before you go?" he whispered.

Instead of answering, I leaned forward against the center console, and softly pressed my lips against his. His hand came up to stroke the side of my face, and I melted into his touch. Like before, Edward didn't deepen this kiss and neither did I. Even then, I still had goosebumps all over. "Goodnight, Bella," Edward whispered against my lips right before brushing them against mine once more.

"Goodnight, Edward. Drive safe," I said smiling once we parted.

I got out of the car and ran to my house because it had started to rain. I stood on the porch and watched Edward drive away before finally going inside.

"Mom? Dad? I'm home!" I called out.

I found my mother sitting on the couch reading a book, but Charlie was nowhere to be found.

"Hey, ,,Mom, where's Dad?" I asked once I reached the living room.

"In the garage doing some cleaning. You should probably let him know you're home," she said not looking up from her book once.

"Okay… Well, I'm going to go shower and head to bed."

After I let Charlie know that I was home, I walked to my room feeling like I was on cloud nine. I used to hear a lot of people say that first dates were awkward events, but with Edward it didn't feel like that, and for that I was glad. My lips were still tingling from the kiss and I didn't want that feeling to go away. Ever.

After a quick shower, I went back to my room, and checked my phone. There were two texts from Angela and Rose asking me to call them first thing tomorrow and tell them about my date, one from Jay, and one from Edward.

_Thanks for such a great night. Looking forward to our second date :) – Edward._

After answering all my messages, I finished getting ready for bed. As I was getting into bed, I heard…

"Why did you lie to me?"

I jumped in surprise, not knowing when Renée had come into my room. When I turned to look at her, her expression wasn't a happy one. In fact, she looked like she was getting ready to ground me or something. Her face was stern, and her blue eyes like steel. She was standing in front of my closed door with her arms crossed in front of her. I stared back at her unable to say anything for two reasons: first, my mind couldn't form a coherent sentence, and second, if had already been caught lying, I didn't want to say anything that would incriminate me further.

"Answer me, Isabella!" she demanded. She was careful to keep her voice low, but I could clearly make out the anger and disappointment from her tone of voice.

"Lie to you about what, Mom?" I answered in a barely audible voice.

I hopped on my bed and sat crossing my legs under me. It was the most comfortable position I could muster to give the appearance that I wasn't lying out of my ass at that moment.

"You know _exactly _what I'm talking about, Isabella," she said. Every time she spoke, her voice was less and less composed. "Where were you tonight?" she asked.

"I told you. I was with Angela and a few school frie–" I started to say before she cut me off.

"That's a load of crap, and you know it!"

I exhaled loudly. I didn't have a plan B. I wasn't sure what to say to placate her and make her quit all the questioning. The only thing I wanted to find out at that moment was who had ratted me out to my mom. Very few people knew about my date with Edward, and I completely trusted them. I couldn't imagine Jay or Angela telling my mom. _Could it have been Rose?_

"Isabella, tell me where you went, or your father will be hearing about this," Renée said.

_What? _Charlie involved? Oh fuck! I was screwed.

"Fine," I said, "I um… I was out on a date tonight."

I kept my head down, as my hands started nervously tugging at the hem of my pajama pants. I was afraid of how Renée might have been looking at me at the moment.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Renée moved closer, and sat down at the foot of my bed.

"Why couldn't you just tell me?" she asked. Her voice was calmer now, but it still sounded disappointed – hurt even.

"I… I… uh…" I didn't want to tell her anything because I knew she and Charlie would demand to meet Edward immediately, and I didn't want to scare him off on our first date. Also, I knew Renée was going to end up embarrassing me one way or another.

"Have Charlie and I been such bad parents that you felt the need to hide these things from us? From me? Your own mother?"

Her statement made me feel like a jerk. I reached my hand out to touch hers when she suddenly moved away from me and stood up to face me.

"You know what? You're ending whatever it is you started tonight," she stated.

My eyes flew up to meet hers, and instantly I could feel the tears stinging my eyes.

"What?" I cried, "No, Mom, you can't do that!"

"Oh really? You wanna bet?" she replied, clearly challenging me.

"But –" I started to say.

"No buts. Am I making myself clear?" she said, quirking her eyebrow.

I looked down, placing my hands in my lap before answering, "Yes, ma'am." My vision was blurry as tears pooled in my eyes. I was afraid to blink just in case any traitor tears got out, and I really didn't want Renée to be in the room when I finally broke down.

"If you can't be mature enough to tell your parents your whereabouts, let alone introduce us to your friends, or a boy you like, then you're obviously not mature enough to be dating," she said.

"Mom, I'm really sorry," I said, my voice full of guilt.

She walked to the door without as much as looking back to me. On a whim, I decided to see if she would tell me who was responsible for my current misery.

"One of your friends told me," she simply answered.

"Well, does that _friend_ have a name?" I asked bitterly, putting emphasis on the word 'friend'.

Renée walked out of my room and answered right before closing the door, "She said her name was Alice."

* * *

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!


	10. Not The Best Thanksgiving (EPOV)

A/N: Hello! Anyone here? Thank you all of you who still read this little story and put it on alert/favorite. I really appreciate it.

My betas Ginginlee and VoluptuousVamp, and my pre-reader Amy (Nolebucgrl) are awesome! Thank you guys for all your help and suggestions.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. No copyright infringement intended. I'm just playing around with her characters. :)

We get to hear Edward in this chapter!

* * *

EPOV

My date with Bella had been absolutely amazing. I had such a great time with her at the bowling alley that I made a mental note to myself to take her there again in the future. It probably seemed irrational, but I missed her already.

I had a permanent smile etched on my face as I drove home after dropping Bella off that night. Making my way inside my house, I noticed the whole first floor of the house was dark, except for Carlisle's office.

_Mom must be asleep, _I thought.

"Hi, Dad," I said, walking in his office and taking the seat opposite his.

"Hey, Son, how was your night?" he asked. He looked exhausted. It was time for him to take a vacation already; he was clearly working too much.

"It was great. I had a really good time," I said.

"Good. Good."

He looked back down at the medical text he was reading before I walked in, and placed a bookmark in the open page, and then closed it before raising his eyes to face me again.

"This Bella sounds like a nice girl," he casually. "Your mom mentioned that you really like her."

I quirked my eyebrow at him. What was he getting at? He didn't sound too convinced.

"Yeah, she is. And I do like her… very much," I answered in the same casual tone.

What was up with him? Did he not like Bella? I mean, he hadn't even met her to judge her. His reaction was even more bizarre because he had never seemed to have a problem with anyone I'd dated. The only time he was this serious was when he went all doctor mode with me and started in on his "responsibility" talk.

I grabbed the obnoxious yellow stress ball from the top of his desk and squeezed it slowly. An uncomfortable and awkward silence fell over us for a few seconds before I got tired of waiting for him to finally spit out what he had to say.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Dad?" I asked.

He looked at me with a surprised look on his face. I hoped that this conversation wouldn't turn into _that _particular discussion I had with him just two and a half years prior.

"I just wanted to know how… err… serious you were planning to take this relationship," he said hesitantly.

Here we go…

I shrugged. "I don't know yet. I mean, we've only been out on one date so far," I said. "Listen, Dad, I don't need this talk. You've already covered this in the most embarrassing way possible, and I don't wanna experience that again."

Last time I had this talk with Carlisle we still lived in Chicago, and I had brought my then-girlfriend Kathryn to officially meet him and Esme. Carlisle had brought us into his study and had the most embarrassing talk with us about taking precautions if we were going to be intimate, contraception, and all the other awkward scenarios you never in your life wanted to confer with your parents – in front of your girlfriend no less.

Carlisle chuckled anxiously.

"Yeah, I'll admit I went a little overboard that time," he said. "I guess you're old enough to know better now… and I expect you to be responsible for your actions."

His tone was stern. There was no place for arguing, and who was I to disagree with him? I knew he only wanted the best for me, so I just nodded.

"I also wanted to run something else by you," he said carefully.

He paused for a moment to gauge my reaction before leaning back in his chair. His never-ending calm was unnerving me today. His blue eyes regarded me carefully before he continued talking.

"You remember Eleazar, right?" he asked.

I nodded.

Eleazar Marin was one of my dad's best friends. He and Carlisle met while they were in medical school, and had been friends ever since. I'd practically known him my entire life. His wife Sasha, and his daughters were also considered good friends. Esme and Sasha had developed a really close friendship, and had been almost attached at the hip – now, not so much.

"Well, he is going to be in town next week… I've invited him over for thanksgiving dinner."

I shrugged. "That's cool. I think you should tell mom though, so she makes enough food."

I didn't get why he was telling me this. It was as if he was asking my permission.

"He won't be alone."

I scoffed. "Of course not. Sasha's coming too, right?"

He nodded. "So is Irina… and… Kathryn."

_Say what?!_

And he completely just killed my mood.

"You can't be serious, Dad!" I exclaimed.

I started squeezing the stress ball with more force. This was going to be so awkward. I didn't have a problem with Eleazar and Sasha. Hell, even Irina was fine, but not her. Not Kathryn. I didn't want to see her. Not after the way she ended things with me. I didn't hold a grudge against her anymore, but I just didn't want to deal with anything from my past anymore. I didn't need his curveball thrown at me right now.

"You didn't expect them to spend this holiday away from their kids, did you?" he asked.

His normally passive persona was really infuriating me at the moment. I had moved on from this. At least, that's how I felt. I didn't want anything to do with her anymore. I knew I wasn't going to be able to avoid her forever since my parents were very good friends with hers, but I thought I would have more time.

I studied my dad, but he had an unreadable expression on his face. He took off his glasses and folded them, placing them on the side of his desk parallel to the book he had been reading earlier. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose – a gesture I learned from him – before exhaling loudly and addressing me again.

"Listen, I know this is not a comfortable circumstance for you, but please, can I trust you to keep things civil?" he asked

I rolled my eyes. "Right. Because you guys raised a savage," I said sardonically.

"Edward…" he warned.

I raised my hand in surrender.

"You know what? Do whatever you want. I don't care." I said exasperatedly.

Bullshit. I _did _care, but I didn't want to fight with him and risk mom waking up. Throwing the stress ball carelessly on his desk, I got up and stalked out of his office without looking back.

-x-x-x-

I spent most of the weekend grouchy as fuck. It was way too cold, and it snowed on Saturday, so I didn't even have the option to go on my weekend run and let off some steam. I spent most of the time cooped up in my room, and only saw my parents during meal times. During lunch, Esme tried to talk to me, but I wouldn't listen and ended up excusing myself from the table. After that, she didn't once breach the subject again.

The highlight of my weekend was definitely that time I spoke with Bella. We'd only spoken through text because she was busy with her mom, but that didn't matter to me. We were talking. Apart from my bad mood, I couldn't get Bella's face out of my mind. I kept replaying over and over in my head specific things about her I had noticed the night before. The way her brows creased whenever she was concentrating on something, or how she bit her lower lip and blushed whenever she was nervous. The way she laughed so carefree, and how much fun she was having. And also that amazing kiss. It definitely wasn't a detailed kiss, but it still was one of the most enjoyable kisses I'd ever experienced. The intensity I felt as I kissed her could only be described as out of this world. It was such a profound feeling; I never wanted to lose it.

I was grateful when Monday morning rolled around, because at least I had school to keep me distracted for most of the day at least. I woke up late because Esme had to go into work earlier than usual, so she wasn't there to make sure I was up, and my alarm never went off. I stumbled out of bed like a bat out of hell, took the quickest shower known to man, and dressed for the day. No matter how fast I accomplished all that, I was still going to be late – unless traffic worked in my favor.

It was so ridiculously cold and windy. It looked as if it was getting ready to snow once again. This winter was going to be brutal.

I managed to get to school with about a minute to spare before the warning bell rang.

As I hurried to get inside the school building, I spotted Bella and Rosalie by the entrance. From my distance, I couldn't hear what they were actually saying, but based on the expression on Rosalie's face I could tell it wasn't a lighthearted conversation.

"I would never do that to you, Bella. You know this." I heard Rosalie say as I got closer to them.

"I don't know Rose… It just seems so strange… I mean –" Bella said.

"Hey, Bella. Hi, Rosalie," I said as I approached them.

Rosalie muttered a quick hello while Bella turned to look at me. When our eyes met, her features completely changed. She was all serious one second, and the next, a bright smile graced her face. She reached out for my hand, and I graciously took it squeezing her hand in response.

"Hey, Edward," Bella answered before turning back to Rosalie.

"Can we finish talking later?" Bella asked Rosalie.

"Yeah… I uh, have to get to class anyways. I'll see you guys later," Rosalie said, walking into the school building.

Bella took a deep breath and turned to me again. "Do you mind if we talked before going in there?" she asked, pointing behind her at the school.

She had an impassive expression on her face, and suddenly my heart fell. My mind raced thinking she wanted to break things off with me when they hadn't even had a chance to grow. I hadn't heard from her much over the weekend, and I hadn't made too many moves to contact her either because I didn't want to seem too eager.

"Yeah," I said, "I can skip gym for a few minutes."

I faintly heard the warning bell ring as Bella led me to the other side of the main entrance where there was a door that led to the old part of the school building. We found an old empty classroom and walked in.

Bella sat down on the edge of one of the table, with me standing right in front of her. The way she kept biting her lower lip and avoiding my eyes told me she was nervous about something.

"What's bothering you?" I asked, hoping to get straight to the problem and not beat around the bush.

She slowly raised her eyes to look at me, opening and closing her mouth a few times before finally answering.

"My mom found out we went on a date," she said quietly.

"O…kay…" I said slowly, not really getting where she was going with this.

"Remember how I told you that I didn't want her to know I was seeing anybody just yet?" she asked.

I nodded; I did remember that conversation. She had told me that she didn't want her parents to "scare me off" before our first date. I still wondered what the big deal was with her mother finding out that we were seeing each other. We certainly never talked about it being a secret, and I knew that if we took what we had seriously I would have to meet her parents formally one way or another.

She hesitated before answering me again, and I lifted her chin with my fingertips so I could see her face.

"Just tell me, Bella," I urged.

"She um… she wants me to break up 'whatever it is I started' with you," she said bitterly, using air quotes as she spoke.

"What?" I exclaimed, clearly surprised. "Why?"

"Because I lied to her. She thinks I'm not mature enough to be dating," she said. Her voice was full of annoyance.

I had met Bella's mom the weekend I went to her house to work on the Bio project, and she seemed like a pretty nice lady. What was her problem now? Did she think Bella was still five years old? I ran my hand through my hair in frustration as I pictured different scenarios in my head. The best case was that Bella ad I continue "whatever it is we had," and figure out a way to tell them. The worst: Bella would want to end everything with me just to satisfy her mother. Honestly, I would've assumed her dad would have been more problematic when it came to the issue of Bella dating. She was his only daughter after all. I was still surprised at the fact that it was her mother putting up all the resistance.

Fuck! Why couldn't things be simple for once? I felt my insides churning at all the different possibilities. I really wanted to give this a try with her, and now I didn't know if that was even going to be possible. I already had a decision made up in my mind. Now, all I hoped was that Bella would mirror my thoughts, and we could move forward and take one day at a time.

"Why does she have to choose now to be overly strict with me?" Bella said, instantly pulling me out of my thoughts.

I didn't have an answer for her question, and I really wish I had.

"I mean, I haven't really been a bad kid… except for the time I started smoking and stuff… but still…" she continued.

"What do you want to do?" I asked her.

"I don't want to end things with you," she said firmly.

"What about your mom? And your dad?" I asked, trying to figure out where she was going with this.

Shit. I really hoped her dad didn't take things to the extreme like her mom had. It would be worse for me because he's the chief of police. He could easily charge me with something and arrest me. I hadn't even thought of that. And to top it off, he probably owned a gun or ten. Oh fuck! I might as well start planning my funeral now if he decided to side with his wife.

I stepped even closer to Bella. My hands were now resting on either side of her on the table.

"Bella, you know I really like you. But… I also don't want to be the cause of you arguing with your parents," I said. "Besides, your dad's a cop. He can easily make sure I'm out of the picture if he decides to side with your mom," I explained, frowning.

Bella's eyes widened before flat out laughing in my face.

"Relax," she said in between giggles, "He's not such a bad guy. My dad is harmless."

"For now," I muttered.

"It's nothing to worry about," she said. "Trust me." She reached up and ran her hand through my already messy hair, and I slightly relaxed.

"Charlie tends to be more reasonable with things than Renée, and I'm going to try and talk to him before my mom corrupts his head," she said.

"You're sure?"

She nodded.

"Well… I guess we should head to class," I said, not making a move to leave. It was gym after all, and I wanted some time to think. I had so many things jumbled up in my brain, and they didn't make sense. I just wanted to skip over this entire week and act like nothing happened. I was all for avoidance. I also wanted to figure out some way to prove myself to Bella's mother – and father, for that matter. If that meant I had to meet them right away and butter them up, then I would.

"Okiedokie," she said quietly.

Instead of making a move to get off the table, Bella pulled me closer to her until her lips were almost touching mine. Even though it was warm where we were, her hands still felt cold, and I felt her shiver in our close proximity.

"I'm not giving up," she whispered before gently pressing her lips against mine.

"I'm way too selfish to give you up now," she smirked.

I smiled. We were on the same wavelength. "I feel the same way," I told her, kissing her cheek and straightening up so we could get going to class.

As we walked toward the main hallway, I remembered a little detail Bella had told me earlier.

"How did your mom find out?" I asked.

"Fucking Alice," she said through clenched teeth.

What the fuck?! I knew the girl wasn't fond of Bella, but I didn't understand why. But fuck, she hit an all time low. That was crossing the line already.

"I don't know whether to overlook it, or kick her ass when I see her," Bella said angrily.

I didn't blame her. If Alice wasn't a girl, we would've already had problems.

"Who told her? I mean, I know you guys aren't exactly the best of friends so I don't think you would've told her about it," I said.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," she answered. "I know for a fact that Jasper didn't do it. Even though I haven't mentioned what happened to him yet, I know him. He wouldn't do that to me."

"I don't really talk to a lot of people here, and the only two I mentioned it to was Ben and Emmett," I said.

I doubted Emmett would tell Alice though. I mean, he was Rosalie's boyfriend, and judging from what I had seen of Rosalie's temper so far, I doubt he ever did anything to get on her bad side.

Bella snorted. "Emmett wouldn't. He wouldn't live to see another day after encountering Rose's wrath."

That's what I thought.

"Ben? I don't know," she continued. "But whatever. I'll find out one way or another. It's not like we were planning to keep this a secret," she said motioning between us.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's get to class, we're already extremely late."

"Shit, yeah," Bella said, looking at the time on her phone.

She walked up to me and kissed my cheek before walking in the opposite direction of the hallway to get to her first class.

"I'll see you in Spanish," she said.

"Later," I called.

I walked in the direction of the gym, but never made it inside. Instead, I spent the rest of first period in the library.

-x-x-x-

The rest of the school week was pretty bland, and before I knew it, it was Thanksgiving Day. The dreaded day was here, and I didn't want to get out of bed. Would it be too irrational of me to fake a sickness right now?

After finally getting up and taking a shower, I played my guitar for a while in order to relax. I had been working on a song for the past few weeks, and no matter how much I tried, I never seemed to get the melody of the bridge right.

While I played, I heard my phone ring beside me.

"Bella! Happy Thanksgiving," I said as I answered the phone.

"Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to you too," she said.

If there was one thing I was thankful for at the moment, it was Bella.

"What are you up to?" she asked, her voice sounding light and cheery.

I really enjoyed hearing her over the phone. Her voice was always slightly deeper and lower than normal, which made her all the more interesting in my opinion.

"Not much, just playing my guitar for a while," I replied. "I don't really have much to do today."

I heard her gasp. "Oh, ,let's trade places! I've been cooking with my mom all morning."

"I wish I could, but I know nothing about the art of cuisine," I said laughing.

"I'm sure your mom can give you a few lessons," she said.

"Or maybe you can," I answered back.

There was a slight pause between us. I would've thought the line had disconnected or something if it wasn't for the fact that I could hear Bella's soft breathing on the other side.

"One of these days, Cullen," she said.

Instead of probably making things more awkward over the phone, I changed the subject.

"So… you doing anything special today?" I asked.

"Not really. Just dinner… I think we're going over to Jasper's house later though. What about you?"

I sighed. Should I tell her?

"We, ,uh, have some guests over tonight," I said vaguely.

"Hmm, you don't sound too happy about that," she murmured.

Shit, was I that obvious?

"Ehhh... I'll deal with it." At least, that's what I kept telling myself since the day I found out they were coming.

"You wanna talk about it?" she offered.

Did I want to tell her what was going on? Yes. Did I think it was too soon for me to be having this conversation with her? Most likely. But I was going to try my best to be as open as possibleI could for now and tell her what I could. When I finally decided to talk to her about it, I would like it to be face to face, and also, I didn't want our relationship starting on a bad foot.

"It's just…" I hesitated. "They're family friends, and the last time I saw them, we didn't quite end up on good terms."

"Oh. Was this before you moved to Forks?" Bella asked.

"Yeah. Right after we moved, there were a few disagreements, and stuff… then it got worse after we moved." I explained as much as I could without going into too many details.

"Wow. That's not cool… I don't think you should be too worried though…" She said.

That's what I kept telling myself, but somehow I ended up doubting my thoughts.

"… I mean, if it wasn't yours or your family's fault, then you should be fine if anything happens."

I exhaled loudly. Bella and I were thinking similarly once again. Even though she didn't know the whole actual story, her advice made sense. It also reassured me that I had nothing to worry about.

"I know… it's just… this is the first time I'm gonna see them since that day," I said, laughing tensely.

"Ouch! That wound is still open then," Bella stated.

Yes, it definitely was.

"I still think you shouldn't fret over it too much. Just… be careful of what you say. You don't want to say anything you might regret later, ya know?"

I nodded even though she couldn't see me.

"I will," I said.

Suddenly, I heard a loud beeping noise coming from Bella's line, and heard mutter a low "oh shit!"

"Edward? I gotta go. The time on this pie just went off. Call me or text me later and let me know how it goes, okay?" she said hurriedly.

"Yeah, okay… I'll talk to you later."

I disconnected the call, and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. No matter how much more at ease I felt after talking with Bella, it was going to be a long day.

-x-x-x-

Later that night, as I got ready for dinner, I heard a knock on my door.

"Edward? Can I come in?" Esme asked through the door.

"Yeah."

She walked in and gave a brief look around my room before sitting down on my couch and crossing her legs.

"You're looking fancy," she said smiling brightly.

I rolled my eyes. "It's your fault. If it was up to me, I would be wearing pajamas," I said.

She scrunched her nose slightly before her features turned serious.

"Come here," she said, patting the space next to her on the couch. "Let's talk for a second."

I walked over and sat down next to her. She raised her arm to lean it on the back of the couch, and reached over to run her hand through my hair. This was her way of calming me.

"I know you're not happy about today, sweetie," she said. "And I wish Carlisle would've told me sooner so we could've come up with an… agreement or something. You knew sooner or later you would have to confront her, didn't you?" she continued.

I sighed. "Yeah. It's just… It really caught me off guard," I said. "And honestly, I don't want to risk saying something I'll eventually regret and hurt her." It was the truth. Even though Kathryn had hurt me with the way she ended our relationship, I wasn't a vindictive person.

Esme smiled warmly at me. "I know. You're a good kid, Edward."

I waved her off. Esme was such an amazing mom. She was always so incredibly supportive of me, and she always made it comfortable for me to just go and talk to her about anything that was bothering me.

"I love you, Mom," I said sincerely. It was obvious that I didn't say that to her as often as I should based on the look on her face.

Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, and she had a radiant smile on her face. In a second, she reached over to me and pulled me in her arms, holding me so tight, as if her life depended on it.

"Oh, ,Edward! I thank God everyday for giving you to me," she exclaimed. "Now you're making me cry," she said slapping my shoulder once she released me. Delicately, she ran her finger under her eye to remove the tear that had pooled there without ruining her makeup.

I shook my head in amusement.

"Oh, by the way, are you and Sasha okay?" I asked Esme.

A few weeks before my argument with Kathryn, Esme and Sasha had been acting like enemies. One of their arguments had gotten so bad that my mom had actually slapped Sasha and kicked her out of our house. I had never seen Esme so angry. I never knew the real reason why they fought, but I know that whatever had happened between them was one of the reasons we rushed to move to Forks. The original idea was that we were going to move after I finished high school, but that plan had clearly failed.

"I believe so. I spoke to her a few days ago, you know – to apologize," she stated. Well, that was a good start. At least the grownups would be acting like grownups tonight.

"She seemed to accept my apology, but I'm still not sure… We'll see," she shrugged.

I nodded in response. "I hope you guys can repair your friendship. I know you miss her, Mom."

"I know. I'll let you finish getting ready. I need you downstairs in fifteen," she said.

I nodded in response, walking to my closet to get my shoes.

"I still think you should wear the tie," she said as she walked out the door.

_I don't think so,_ I thought.

Fifteen minutes later, I stood off to the side in the hall leading to the living room with Esme as Carlisle went to answer the door. I shifted uncomfortably in my spot as I stood there with my hands buried in my pockets. Esme looked up at me and squeezed my forearm reassuringly.

"It'll be okay," she whispered, before leading me to the main room to greet our guests.

Sasha was the first to enter and approach us, embracing my mom in a tight hug. "Sasha! You're looking well," Esme said as she returned her hug.

Sasha was about an inch taller than Esme. She was a very good-looking woman with medium length black hair. She had a petite frame that she always accentuated with tight fitting clothes, and her bright hazel eyes seemed to shine contrasted with her olive toned skin.

"So do you, Esme. This town suits you," Sasha responded, giving her a friendly smile.

It seemed like everything was really okay between them, and for that I was glad. They exchanged a few more pleasantries before Sasha's eyes locked on mine.

"My, my, Edward! Look at you. You look older," she said walking towards me and kissing both of my cheeks.

"Nice to see you again, Sasha," I said politely.

Her husband, Eleazar was right behind her, and we exchanged handshakes.

Eleazar was a tall man – almost as tall as me – with Spanish features and dark eyes. He was dressed in a pale grey shirt and black jacket looking very authoritative. Even though I knew him since I was a little kid, there were still times where I still felt nervous around him. I was always mindful of my behavior around him. He was much more stringent than Carlisle, and that always intimidated me. His dark, intense stare made you want to cringe away from him.

"Good to see you, Eleazar," I said looking at him straight in the eyes. One thing I had learned about him was to never break eye contact when greeting him.

"You too, Edward." He answered coolly. There was a tiny hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips, and I internally relaxed.

Irina was next. She was Eleazar and Sasha's eldest daughter. She was practically the female version of Eleazar, except she had eyes just like Sasha. She was five years older than I was, and ever since were kids, she teased me like a big sister would.

"Little Tony!" She said cheerfully as she approached me, giving me a hug.

"Long time, no see, Rina," I said, embracing her.

I heard our parents laughing behind us. They knew how much Irina hated being called "Rina." She was never a fan of having a nickname.

"Ugh! You had to go there, didn't you?" she said punching my shoulder.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Hey, you started it," I responded. I hated being called Tony. It was just one of the unwanted perks of being named Anthony.

"Whatever," she huffed. "I'm gonna eat your slice of pie for that," she said with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes at her. She wouldn't dare.

And there she was finally. Kathryn Marin. She walked in with a grace only she was capable of. Kathryn was the opposite of Irina, being an exact replica of her mother, except for her hair which was light brown and currently in waves cascading down her back. Her bright hazel eyes were the first thing I had found attractive about her back then. After greeting my parents, she walked over to me hesitantly before embracing me, her arms tighter around me than I expected. My body stiffened automatically and I tried to wriggle my way out of her hold.

"Edward! I've missed you," she said, pressing herself against me once more.

"How are you, Kathryn?" I asked after putting some distance between us. I noticed everyone had left the room, giving us unneeded - and in my case, unwanted privacy.

She looked at me confused, with her brows creased. "Kathryn?" She whispered surprised. "I was always 'Katy' or 'Kate' to you," she said dejectedly.

"Things change," I replied casually.

"Can we talk?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I don't think I have anything else to say to you," I said.

I really didn't have anything else to say. She broke up with me. We moved on – at least I did. What else was there?

I thought back to my earlier phone conversation with Bella. She had been so perceptive when we talked. Even though I hadn't told her exactly the reason why I felt the way I did, it was still good to be able to talk to someone and listen to another's opinion. Her voice really calmed me. It helped me think clearly, and I assured myself I would not let this bother me. Not anymore. Kathryn and I were done for good.

"Please, Edward."

My mom chose that moment to tell us dinner was served, and I was grateful at the interruption. I motioned for Kathryn to walk ahead of me, and we made our way to the dining room. The table was filled with a turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, garden salad, bean salad, lasagna, rice, even chicken. I briefly wondered how much time it took my mom to make all of it, and if we were expecting more guests.

As it was tradition in my house, we all stood around the table and held hands as Carlisle said grace, and then we all sat down in our respective seats. I was thankful that I was seated in between Esme and Irina, and Sasha had taken the chair directly in front of me. Of course, I did endure another round of teasing from Irina, but that was routine for us.

Dinner was pretty civilized with casual conversation flowing around the table. Carlisle and Eleazar were the ones that talked the most – no doubt catching up with one another. As we ate, I noticed Kathryn stealing glances towards me, and I tried my best not to pay attention to her. After dinner, she offered to help Esme get the plates and the pies from the kitchen.

"I hope you know I spit on your slice of pie, Tony," Irina whispered to me with a devilish smile on her face.

I laughed out loud. "And how would you which pie I'm gonna eat from?" I asked her.

She arched her brow at me. "Touché. But I have my ways," she replied.

"Gosh! I don't know how your boyfriend deals with you, Rina," I smirked, trying to get a rise out of her.

Carlisle and Eleazar had listened into our banter, and were now laughing openly at us.

"Idiot. I'll get you for that later." She huffed and glared at me.

After we finished our dessert, we moved to the living room where more conversation followed. The TV was on with a replay of the latest football game, but no one paid attention to it. Irina had excused herself to talk on the phone with her boyfriend, while Carlisle, Esme, Eleazar and Sasha were in deep conversation; I was playing the dodging game with Kathryn. I spoke whenever I was included in conversation and managed to stay at least partially engaged in my surroundings. After a while, it just got awkward, and I excused myself. I passed by the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge, heading into Carlisle's office to have some time alone.

I looked around the office, noticing how clean and orderly it looked. It was clearly a good place to go if you needed some peace. I raised the beer bottle to my lips, feeling the cool, bitter liquid travelling down my throat. I stood in front of the window and took a deep breath as I watched the snow piling down on the ground. This day was by far the most dreadful thanksgiving I had experienced. I prayed that this wasn't going to be a yearly tradition.

"I thought I'd find you here," I heard someone say from behind me.

I turned around and saw Kathryn standing on the other side of Carlisle's desk, her hands leaning against the top. I hadn't even heard her come in the office. Her head was cocked to the side, and she was watching me warily. I ignored her, and turned back to stare out the window when I heard her voice again.

"I know you're mad at me," she mumbled, her voice low and careful. It was as if she thought someone was eavesdropping on our conversation.

"You're wrong. I'm not mad," I said.

_I'm over it, _I thought.

I took another drink from my beer and put the bottle back down on the desk. "What do you want, Kathryn?" I asked, getting straight to the point.

She looked down at Carlisle's desk and traced random patterns on the surface with her fingertip.

"I just… I wanted to apologize for… you know… what happened last year," she said.

"I forgive you," I replied.

And I did. I wasn't the same person I was when I lived in Chicago. Admittedly, there were certain days where I still felt homesick, and wanted to go back, but then I thought of all the good things that had happened to me after I moved to Forks – meeting Bella, for example – and that settled me.

"I made a mistake, and I really want to fix it."

I scoffed. "What is there to fix, Kathryn? Tell me."

She looked up at me with a gloomy look on her face. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears.

"Haven't you read any of my emails?" she asked.

About two months after Kathryn had broken up with me, she had resorted to sending me an email almost every day since I rejected all of her calls. I was bitter and angry, so I refused to read any of her emails as well. I knew that having any sort of contact with her would hurt me even more, so eventually, I changed my email address.

"Why should I? You had already said your piece when you broke up with me over the phone," I pointed out crossly.

I saw her visibly flinch at my statement. I wasn't lying though. A week after the summer I moved to Forks, I received a call from a crying Kathryn.

"_Katy? Honey, what's wrong?" I asked anxiously over the phone._

_I was so worried when I had answered that call. I had never heard her sound so miserable. I felt powerless being so far away from her that I couldn't console her on whatever was happening. For a while, all I could hear over the line were the sounds of her hushed sobs, and that just made me edgier by the second. _

"_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Edward," she said in between sobs._

_What was she apologizing for? _

"_What are you talking about?" I asked._

_By that time, I was sitting up in bed, my leg bouncing frantically in expectancy._

"_I- I can't do this!" she cried._

"_Can't do what, Kate? Tell me what's wrong. I've never heard you like this before."_

_Fuck! How I wished I was in back in Chicago. I felt so helpless._

"_I miss you too much, babe," she admitted._

_I puffed out my cheeks, letting out a huge breath. Kathryn and I had gotten into a few disagreements before I moved to Forks, mainly because of the issue of how we were going to keep our relationship going. After a couple of weeks of long talks, we had decided to give it a try. We knew it wasn't going to be a walk in the park, but we still promised each other we were going to try our best. After all, we had been romantically involved for about two and a half years._

"_I know, baby… I wish I could do something about this," I said._

_At first I thought of asking my parents to let me go back for a few weeks. After all, I was already registered at Fork's high, and school wouldn't start for another month. My thoughts were interrupted when I heard Katy's voice again._

"_I think… I think we should… we should just… break up," she sniffled._

_What? No! Why would she say that? Why was she giving up so quickly already?_

_I stood up off my bed, and started pacing the length of my bedroom._

"_Katy? Kate, no. Listen to me. We can work this out. Don't do this. Please." I said quickly._

"_No. No. I can't! I just can't!"She kept insisting._

"_It's all going to be okay, I promise."_

"_How can you promise that? You're over two thousand miles away."_

_She had a point. I couldn't promise that. I didn't know if we were going to be okay, or if we were going to make it through this. I just thought we would at least have some more time to get used to it._

"_You're right, I can't promise that. But, honey, we talked about this, and _

"_I know what we talked about, Edward. I've been thinking about it all week. I just… I – it's too much for me," she restated._

_I sighed again. I didn't want to lose her._

"_Damn it, Kate! Why now?" I exclaimed, "Why couldn't you just talk to me about this before I left? In person!" Now I was just aggravated._

"_I don't know, okay! I'm sorry!" was all she had to say._

_She was still crying over the phone, but at that moment I doubted she was feeling as hurt as I was._

"_I have to go," she said after a pause._

"_No, Katy… wait…" I stammered. I was quickly running out of time, and I didn't know what else to say in order to change her mind. To see that this could actually work if she gave the chance._

"_Edward, I really need to go," she said once again._

_I exhaled loudly. I couldn't come up with anything, so I told her the only thing I knew that would show her I was not giving up."I love you."_

"_I know," she said almost inaudibly before hanging up._

_I growled in frustration after the call disconnected. I couldn't think straight. I threw my phone on the bed and heard as it connected with the wall with a loud thump. I kicked one of the boxes I had yet to unpack to let out some steam for good measure. I was a wreck. Why the _fuck _did we have to move to Forks?_

I stared back at Kathryn waiting for an answer from her.

"I know. That was really stupid of me. I realize that now," she said quietly.

During the days after she had broken up with me, I had spent countless nights just laying in bed and trying to come up with ways in which I could win Kathryn back. Then I came up with reasons. Reasons that led me to believe I was the problem. I wondered what was wrong with me, and where I had gone wrong in our relationship. I knew we had started dating when we were pretty young; Our parents pushed us together so much, we had decided to give it a try. And it worked. There were times where I felt uncomfortable and that our relationship was progressing way too fast for my liking, but, for almost three years we made it work. We had shared so many things. We had been earth other's firsts in almost every sense of the word. And then I moved to Forks and everything changed. Esme helped me understand that I wasn't at fault for what happened. Pretty soon I got tired of trying to find more reasons, so I slowly started letting go of Kathryn, and all the anger I felt toward her.

"We had plans, Kathryn! We had it all worked out. I had even planned a surprise visit for you during the holidays. What happened to all that?"

"I said I was sorry," she said accusingly, "I didn't think things though. I was scared, and insecure. I knew you were going to be going to a new school, and more girls would pay attention to you. I just… I…"

"And you couldn't talk to me about it? I thought you trusted me," I said, interrupting her.

"I do trust you, Edward."

"It didn't seem like it when you decided that breaking up with me – over the phone no less – was the best way to go. We've known each other for so long, ,,Kathryn. We spent almost three years as a couple. I know our relationship was somewhat forced and fast paced, but I fell for you. That was something I never expected would happen."

She looked at me passively.

"I thought I was doing the best thing for us at the time," she said.

It ended up being the best thing for me. I had met Bella. Now I had a chance to be happy again.

"I want to fix my mistake. I want us to try again, Edward," she said. She walked around the desk until she was standing right in front of me. Her hand reached up to stroke my cheek. "I miss you."

Maybe in another time, I would've considered her proposition. Hell, I had longed to hear those words from her a long time ago. Not anymore.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I reached up to grasp her hand in mine and moved it away from my cheek, shaking my head gently.

"I can't," I murmured, opening my eyes to look at her again. "Not anymore."

She looked at me clearly confused, before her eyes widened in surprise. It was as if I could hear the gears going off in her head.

"You've moved on," she said, looking down at my hand which was still holding hers.

Indeed I had. With the most wonderful girl ever.

"Yes, I have… and so should you."

"I'm too late," she whispered to herself before looking up at me intently. Her hazel eyes were wide and unblinking, shiny and full of unshed tears.

At that moment, I pushed aside all the history I had with Kathryn pulling her to me and embracing her. I could feel her shoulders shaking as she cried against my chest. I never imagined I was going to feel such peace as I finally expressed my feelings to her. It was great to finally be able to let go of everything in the past, and start living my future. What I didn't like was that now Kathryn was suffering. Even though I was over her, it still upset me to see her like that. She was still my childhood friend.

"I hope… I hope we can still be friends," Kathryn said after she pulled away from.

I smiled weakly at her and nodded.

"You've really changed since the last time I saw you," she said.

She leaned over to me again, and pressed her lips against my cheek. "I hope you're happy," she whispered in my ear. "You deserve to be."

She walked out of the office, leaving rooted at my spot. She had changed as well. She was definitely more mature. I stood where I was for a few more minutes, and turned to stare back at the window, all the while finishing the now warm beer. The snow had stopped falling, and all was quiet. It was exactly how I felt inside.

As I took the last sip of beer, I heard the door open, and Esme came into the office. She had a look of utter disapproval on her face when she noticed the beer bottle in my hand, but decided not to comment on it.

"Eleazar and his family are leaving," she said. "Are you going to come say goodbye?"

"Yeah."

I moved to walk out of the office with her, but she held my hand and pulled me into a tight hug. One of those hugs only mothers could provide.

"Kathryn told me you guys talked and cleared the air. I'm so proud of you, sweetie," she stated.

"Thanks, Mom,"

After our guests were gone, and everything was cleaned up and done, I took a shower and just let the hot water wash off any tension I had left of the day. After I finished and got ready for bed, I did the one thing that would make my night just right: I called Bella.

* * *

So... what do you think is gonna happen next? let me know by clicking that blue button!

Thanks for reading!

**Recs:**

**Close Your Eyes** by **CaraNo**: Bella barely remembers her godparents, but after losing her mom and dad, she's shipped off to rainy Washington to live with the Cullens for her final semester in high school. On the outside, the Cullens are perfect. Behind closed doors is another matter. (very angsty story; completed... Matter fact, go ready anything by CaraNo. Her stories are just amazing! )


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